Fitz-Magic QB Jinx Kept Bills Mafia Favorite Out Of Buffalo

Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Buffalo Bills fans clicked from day one. The journeyman quarterback was easy to relate to for the self-proclaimed blue collar fanbase. A deceiving love-affair because Fitzpatrick graduated from Harvard but antics like going shirtless in the stands, while cheering on the Bills, despite below-zero temperatures, made him a Bills Mafia icon for life. Even his buddy quarterback Josh Allen paid tribute Fitzpatrick prior to Thursday's division game vs. the New England Patriots by wearing a #14 Fitzpatrick jersey.

Fitzpatrick was in attendance for the matchup working as an analyst for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football coverage. The journeyman quarterback played for nine teams during his NFL career, but admitted that Buffalo was his favorite city to play for. So why didn't he return this year for one more at a Super Bowl? Well, according to friend of The Drive with Charlie & Dan, Ryan Talbot of syracuse.com, Allen and Fitzpatrick are friends, but the veteran QB didn't want to return as #17's back-up because "he didn’t want Allen getting “Fitzpatricked.”

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Talbot reported that the Amazon TNF analyst explained it this way, “If you just trace my career arc and you trace some of it I was signed to be a starter or bridge and that happened toward the tail end of my career. But a lot of the places I started as the backup and there was some crazy circumstance of why the starter got hurt.” Fitzpatrick gave examples of the jinx, “Geno (Smith) breaks his jaw...There’s a million different things happening that just kept happening...I didn’t want to sign with the Bills as the backup (because) I love Josh Allen. And I love watching Josh Allen play football. And if I signed to be a backup with the Buffalo Bills... What’s happened the rest of my career? I end up on the field. I don’t want to end up on the field!....I want to see Josh Allen play so that was one where it was like, ‘No. I love watching this kid too much.’ I’ve seen this story happen over and over and over again.’”

Well, it was nice of Ryan Fitzpatrick to spare Josh Allen the risk of the "Fitzpatrick Jinx." However, who knows if Fitz-Magic would have brought the Bills Mafia their first Super Bowl victory in February?