The One In Which Bob Ford Defends Ryan Fitzpatrick

Ok, so you can definitely make the argument that the Eagles can't / won't / shouldn't go after Chad Johnson.  If the price tag really is "expected to be a first and a third," then I'm right there with you.  Johnson is damaged goods, just like Lito Sheppard was, which means the Bengals are going to have to accept an offer that's lower than his football-only value would be.

(Actually, the Bengals remind me a little bit of a home-selling couple whose house keeps sitting on the market because they can't get over the fact that last year they could have sold it for so much more.  Those two first-round picks are never coming back guys, time to move on.)

With that said, Bob Ford today presents the strangest anti-Johnson argument I've yet seen:

Chad is 31 years old and is coming off his least productive season as a professional. Not having Carson Palmer to throw him the ball most of the season didn't help, of course, but Ryan Fitzpatrick wasn't that bad.

And then in the comments, he elaborates:

Ryan Fitzpatrick completed 59 percent of his passes. He didn't throw that many interceptions. His rating (which is a flawed measure) wasn't high because he didn't have a lot of touchdowns. He wasn't that bad. I'm not complimenting him. I'm just saying he wasn't THAT bad. It's not like I compared him to Johnny Unitas.

Might want to take another look at those stats, Bob. 

Yes, Fitzpatrick did complete 59.4 percent of his passes.  Although that's below the 60 percent benchmark everyone likes to see, it's not completely terrible (although it still puts him in the bottom third of the league).

And ...... well, that pretty much wraps up his good points. 

Consider the other side of the scale:

• That QB rating thingamajig that Ford dismisses as flawed?  Yeah, saying it "wasn't high" is a bit of an understatement, considering the 70.0 he posted was the second-worst number in the league.  (And as an aside, the biggest reason QB rating is flawed is because it overemphasizes completion percentage ... which is pretty much Fitz's only plus, so I'm not sure the "flawed" thing buys one much here.)
• TD:INT = 8:9
• DVOA = -18.0% (yes, negative)
• He took 38 sacks (in 12 starts) a year after Palmer took 17 (in a full season)
• He managed two 40+ pass plays and 14 pass plays of 20+ yards (league worst).
• Only 26.9 percent of his attempts went for a first down (also league worst).
• All that dink and dunk stuff -- which is presumably how he got to 59 percent in the first place -- not surprisingly generated an incredibly low figure of 5.1 yards per attempt.  You have to go back to 2004 Mark Brunell to find a lower number -- and that was because Brunell couldn't even complete 50 percent of his passes last year.
• In fact, Fitzpatrick's "accuracy" on those short throws masks just how pitiful his output was.  His yards per completion figure last year was 8.62.  The league average was 11.44.  The next worst guy was Brett Favre (heh) at 10.12. 

That's not just bad, that's soul-crushing.

I will, however, grant that this is a good point:

I do want a receiver upgrade. The question is why do they always have to be crazy?

And that right there is the risk you run if you bring a guy in.  I'm not sure the Eagles could have done a better job handling DeSean Jackson than they did last year.  They managed his workload well, got value from him both on special teams and in the offense, and the veterans like Westbrook, McNabb and others seemed to jump on him from the beginning to ensure he had the best possible mindset for what it takes to succeed in this league.

If you bring in a me-firster like Chad, are you then throwing all of that out the window?