The situation with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Bo Nix has escalated quickly. As an analyst on Amazon Prime, he made some scathing comments about the third-year quarterback following their Week 6 game on Thursday Night Football.
Immediately, the criticism went viral, with the former Buffalo Bills quarterback facing some pushback for his critique. Now, Fitzpatrick has doubled down on his problems with the Denver Broncos star, albeit with one slight tweak.
Against the Seahawks, Nix finished with 107 passing yards. But with the Broncos forcing one interception late in the fourth quarter and another in overtime, they walked away with the win. After the game, though, Fitzpatrick had some choice words for the former first-round pick.
Questioning his play, he believed Nix wasn't being competitive on the field. Moreover, he called the style "disrespectful to the quarterback position." That comment, in particular, rubbed people the wrong way, with Aqib Talib among the loudest voices calling out Fitzpatrick.
Now, on the latest episode of the "Fitz & Whit" podcast, he admitted that the particular comment went a step too far. And if he had a chance to redo it, he would not have made that particular comment.
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Fitzpatrick said, "Playing quarterback is hard, and there are a lot of things you can't control. But there are things you can control, and when you decide to turn it down, maybe that's what really bothered me."
Then, he confessed, "If I could take something back, I think my comments were justified, because that's how I felt at the time. Because it was a very passionate response living in the moment, the line about being disrespectful to the quarterback position, it just boiled over, and that's the one phrase I wish I could take back."
However, even with that retraction, Fitzpatrick wasn't swaying from his overall point. With Nix sitting at number 29 on PFN's NFL Quarterback Impact metrics and throwing for less than 200 yards in four of their six games, he has felt a lack of competitive drive in his playstyle.
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Fitzpatrick added, "Because I think my criticism was fair, and I don't think the effort and the competitiveness that he's shown in the past, I don't think he was showing that at the end of the game. That is somewhere I usually don't go, but that's what I felt. So I do wish I could take that one line out and stand by that."
It remains to be seen if Nix can win Fitzpatrick over in the coming weeks. So far, the Broncos have gone through a true gauntlet of a schedule. After facing five 2025 playoff teams in their first six games, Denver next faces Arizona, Kansas City, and Carolina before its Week 10 bye.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network .
