Fitzpatrick has caught a case of Josh Reed Syndrome

Let's talk about what some fans are saying which is: "Ryan Fitzpatrick misses too many passes". Does he? Let's take a look. Out of 32 pass attempts, he missed on 9 throws, but... Let's take a closer look at these throws. First miss:

A pass thrown behind Stevie Johnson,
 but a closer look and you will see that
the pass was not only hurried, it was hurled
with a defender in his face, this
does not allow for a follow through
and the result is an incomplete pass

A lot more time on this one, and he throws it a bit high to
Stevie Johnson,  but as the next image shows
It could have been caught.

This pass goes on to hit Stevie right in the hands,
but then is dropped.

Fitzpatrick was hit has he threw this one which
was thrown behind Chandler, as the next picture shows

Fitzpatrick is flushed out of the pocket on this
pass and throws across his body, the pass
is slightly behind Chandler and well defended

This pass sails high away from his target but look at the next image

It sailed high because the defender got his hand on the ball
which is what caused the incomplete pass.

On this one Fitzpatrick is again under pressure he runs
forward and misses the pass.  Throwing again
across his body, as the next image shows.

Notice his foot is planted off to the right but the pass
will go to chandler who  is running to the left.

He appears to have better protection on this one,
but as the next image shows...

Yep, another batted ball, this one ends up landing just
short of Stevie Johnson.

This one lands in front of his WR, but let's not
ignore the pass interference going on there that wasn't called

There it is... another batted pass.

At first when I watched this one I thought he was
just throwing it away.  But another look and
I realized that Graham was hot on this
play and was supposed to cut off his route, rookie mistake.

...and the one that everyone remembers,
the throw in OT to Fred Jackson.
What most people didn't realize is that this
pass was actually tipped by a
lineman, as the next picture shows.

So out of 32 pass attempts, there were what appeared to be 9 bad throws, however, 3 of those bad passes were actually tipped balls.  So only 6 of them were sloppy throws by Fitzpatrick... That's 18.7% of his passes that went errant.

Then I was thinking, I wonder how many bad passes Brady throws... so I watched the film of the Seahawks game.  Out of a whopping 58 pass attempts Brady missed clean (no tipped balls) on 14 passes, that's 24%.  He also had 2 intentional grounding calls.

I am in no way comparing Fitzpatrick to Brady because clearly that are at 2 completely different levels when it comes to Quarterbacks.  I just used it as an example that even the elite QB's miss passes.

The analysis is the Fitzpatrick isn't as bad as you think he is.  I call it the Josh Reed Syndrome.  What I mean is that Josh Reed had a season (his third season with the team) where he dropped more than his share of passes, but after that became a pretty clutch wide receiver.  But because people expected Reed to drop the ball, they remembered each drop as multiple drops.  Furthermore any time any WR dropped the ball they remembered it as Josh Reed doing it.

So the Josh Reed Syndrome for Fitzpatrick is that this season fans are expecting him to miss throws, so they are remembering any pass as a miss throw, regardless of whether he was running for his life, or the ball was tipped at the line.  The problem is that most fans watch the game once, and as it turns out, that one time they watch it is when emotions are running high because they don't know the outcome yet, so every bad pass is magnified.  But go back and watch the Cardinals game because he made a lot of great throws in that one too.

He is an average QB which is all you need to get into the playoffs in the NFL.