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It’s the year 2020. Ryan Fitzpatrick will soon turn 38 years old. And he’s once again starting a game against the Buffalo Bills, the 141st start of his now 16-year career.

He was supposed to be long finished, remembered as a journeyman who had a dazzling run in Buffalo, played for eight different teams and grew facial hair better than any quarterback in the history of the league.

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But he’s not done. Since Buffalo tossed him on the scrapheap in favor of E.J. Manuel in 2013, Fitzpatrick found his way into the starting lineup for five other teams. He threw for 3,900 yards and 31 touchdowns in 2015 while leading the Jets to a 10-6 record and near playoff berth. A year ago, he took over a Miami team that was supposed to be tanking and somehow threw for 3,500 yards and 20 touchdowns in 13 starts to will the undermanned Dolphins to a 5-8 record.

Fitzpatrick has never cared what is supposed to happen. A seventh-round pick out of Harvard who didn’t become a full-time starter until he was 29 isn’t supposed to throw for 33,000 yards and last this long in the NFL. But he has.

“I can assure you, nobody that’s ever played with that man or coached him is the least bit surprised that he’s still doing it,” said Bills tight end Lee Smith, who played with Fitzpatrick in 2011 and 2012. “Is it unconventional? Is it a much different path than the majority of quarterbacks that played 17 years? Hell, the guy has started for half the teams and thrown touchdowns for half the teams in the league. Obviously that’s a little different. To maybe someone on the outside it might be confusing or hard to understand why he hasn’t latched on in one place, but I assure you, to keep a job in this business as long as he has and to have success every time he becomes the starter, no one that’s ever known him is the least bit surprised. He’s a special player and a special person. Period.”

Fitzpatrick is still beloved in the Buffalo community. His four-year stretch with the Bills is the longest he stuck with one team. He spent his first two years in Buffalo working his way from the bench to the starting lineup twice only to grab hold of the job permanently in 2010. By 2011, he’d earned a six-year, $59 million extension as the Bills started 5-2. By 2013, Fitzpatrick was gone, having thrown for more than 11,000 yards and 80 touchdowns in 53 starts.

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But he didn’t just leave Buffalo behind. The impression he left on teammates and the community is obvious. He still talks about how much he loved his time in Western New York. And guys he played with still gush about the best teammate they ever had. To hear it from them, there aren’t many better human beings who have played in the NFL than Fitzpatrick.

The Fitzpatrick stories always start in the locker room. Before he could get on the field and get players to follow him, he needed to connect with them. And Fitzpatrick had a way of reaching everyone in the locker room, regardless of age or background. It’s part of why guys are always ready to rally around him when he gets thrown into the starting lineup like he did for the Bills in 2009 when Trent Edwards got hurt. It’s also why it’s hard for teams to take Fitzpatrick out.

Smith: The behind-the-scenes antics in the locker room are not to be talked about in public. Let’s just put it this way: Man, the guy has a great way of keeping things light while at the same time being an extreme professional and demanding the most out of his teammates. There’s very few leaders I’ve ever been around that are elite players, true professionals, but at the same time can get away from ball when it’s time to get away from ball and be a human being. And that’s one thing that I think Fitz has perfected and that’s why people follow him. In between the lines and when we’re working and when it’s football time, he demands ultimate professionals to be around him and be a part of his offense. But then when it’s time to break away and be a dad, a husband, a friend, just a normal human being that can relate to anybody, whether it’s a 10-year veteran from the projects or a 10-year veteran redneck like me, he can literally relate and be a friend and make you laugh. He’s just a very special human being.

Former Bills center Eric Wood: He’s got zero ego. He relates to anybody on the team. He has a phenomenal personality. He’s fun. He’s funny. He’s smart, so he puts people in position to where they can go make plays. To do what he’s done in his career and go to so many teams and all those teams have confidence in him as a starter shows how adaptable he is. In each organization, he goes in, wins the locker room over and then guys constantly go out there and play hard for him.

Former Bills guard Andy Levitre: I think it’s just the way he knows how to reach people as a friend. He’s very personable to people and I think that helps people build relationships and be comfortable. That’s what you want, especially from a quarterback. They have a lot of things going on, they have a lot of information they need to gather, a lot of time they need to spend studying and whatnot. For a guy like him to be able to connect with you on a personal level and have a good time, it helps bring that bond together so when you go out and play, you feel like you’re playing with your buddy and it makes things easier. You want to play for a guy like that. That’s always the way I felt playing with him in Buffalo. It was a fun experience playing with a guy like that. That was one of my first experiences in the NFL, so it was hard for me to know anything else. But throughout my career having been around other quarterbacks and being in other locker rooms, that’s definitely a special trait that he has, to be able to be as personable as he is and develop that camaraderie and friendship in the locker room.

Smith: Just someone I looked up to. Him and the Kyle Williamses of the world were the ones I followed around like a damn tick to learn as much as I possibly could. I’ve always said Ryan Fitzpatrick and Marshawn Lynch, my two favorite teammates ever. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that have played with Fitz that would co-sign that notion.

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Former Bills guard Kirk Chambers: I remember things I enjoyed doing, we had epic Scrabble games that we used to play. I had him beat. The one time I had him beat, he freaking drops “acerbic” on me. I still remember it to this day. He exchanged a B and dropped “acerbic” on me and beat me by 20 points. I had one of my best games running. And I was so pissed because I finally had Fitzy in Scrabble and he just pulled it out. Here I am, a Stanford guy. I was pretty good at Scrabble. I could beat the average guy. But I never could get him.

With Fitzpatrick, the friendships didn’t end in the locker room, because they were genuine. That’s why teammates still want to talk about him years after they played with him. Many of them are still in touch with Fitzpatrick and follow his career closely. They recall fondly the way he took over the job in 2010 and led the Bills on that magical run in 2011. But they all have a story about something Fitzpatrick did outside of the Bills’ facility that showed how big his heart is.

Wood: Everything he does is over the top. If you go out to eat with him, he’ll order half the menu. He can’t eat it all but wants to try something or want everybody to eat a bunch so he’ll order an obnoxious amount of food. Me and my wife were going down to the CMA awards in Nashville when he was playing for the Titans and he was going home for the weekend back to Arizona. But he let me and Leslie stay at his house. When we got there, he had gone to the snack aisle at the grocery store and gotten one of everything for us. Every type of chip, breakfast bar, anything you could possibly imagine, he lined up all across the counters. He got Leslie all the gossip magazines assuming that she might want those. Every type of domestic beers, Mexican beers, Canadian beers, any type of beer you could think of, he put in the fridge. And it was only for us. Originally he said, “I don’t have any food or furniture or anything, but you’re welcome to stay here.” I said, “Dude it’s all good, we’ll just crash.” He just decked the place out for us.

Former Bills receiver Donald Jones: He’s going to go the extra mile like that, but in that there’s a joke in there somewhere. “You’re a lineman, so I’m going to make sure you have every snack in the grocery store.” That’s the type of person he is.

Chambers: I was coaching high school football in Utah — you may have even seen this. This went viral and national. It’s fourth down, there’s three seconds left. My quarterback rolls out right. We win the game if he takes a knee. Instead he drops the ball and the other team picks it up and goes and scores and wins. And it’s a playoff game. So this kid’s just crushed. I’m reaching out to anyone I can just to kind of build this kid up. It got vitriolic very quickly on this kid. You know how trolls are. I asked Fitz to reach out to him, and he called my guy and they had a conversation. He just talked him up. He didn’t have to do that and I was just super impressed that he would do that and reach out to this kid and just really build him up after a traumatic experience for a high school kid. And Fitz has the experience of saying, “Look I’ve been there.” That speaks to his character but also speaks to Fitz is probably one of the most resilient quarterbacks to have ever played.

Levitre: We had our own little inside thing with some of the linemen and Fitz. We used to go to lunch every Friday after practice, a bunch of the O-line guys and Fitz. We definitely connected a lot during that time. You don’t really see that that often. To be in a locker room with a guy like him and share some of those experiences with him was great.

Smith: He’s the guy that will sneak off from a two or three thousand dollar dinner with teammates and act like he had to go pee, and he’ll go pay the tab while nobody is looking. He’s just a guy that takes care of his teammates, takes care of his offensive linemen, treats everybody the same, never acts like he’s above anyone based on how long he’s been doing it or the fact that he’s the starting quarterback. He’s just a wonderful, wonderful man that deserves to be admired for much more than just playing quarterback in the NFL.

Jones: We flew out to Arizona where he lived at the time to his house out there and stayed there for like a week training with Larry Fitzgerald and a bunch of guys in the league in Phoenix. It was myself and Naaman Roosevelt in his kids’ beds and they had these little tiny beds. He put his wife out the house and they all went and stayed with the parents and it was just us guys in the house, sleeping all around the house. And it was a good time. He took care of us. We went up into the mountains. He had these off-road rangers. Fred Jackson caught a flat tire, because Freddy likes to drive crazy. We were in the desert, no sign of life, no cell phone service. We just had to find a way back down. If Chan (Gailey) ever found that out at that time, he would have killed all of us.

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Sometimes it’s hard to explain why certain people are so good at connecting others. It’s not a quality that’s easy to fake or develop. It helped that Fitzpatrick could relate to anyone and made the effort to do so. It didn’t hurt that he was so generous with his time, money and house. But he also could make people laugh. Whether in the locker room, in the huddle in the middle of a game or away from the facility, Fitzpatrick is the one cracking jokes.

Smith: Let’s put it this way, Fitz has a habit of not wearing clothes a lot. He turns up in the nude quite frequently. That’s something that’s hard to forget, let’s put it that way.

Jones: He came in one time in the locker room and there was a commercial or something with some jeans with the butt cheeks cut out, and he came into the locker room with some jeans on with the butt cheeks cut out. We’re all like, “Come on, Fitz. What are you doing?” That’s the type of guy he was, walking around with his butt out. That guy, man. He’s a funny guy.

Wood: I remember we were playing in Cincinnati and Fitz sent Ryan Fitzpatrick Bills jerseys for all of Carson Palmer’s kids.

Jones: A quarterback has to put their hand under the center. That might not smell too good after a long day of practice. He would do stuff like, “Smell this.” Like, “Yo, I don’t want to smell your hand. That’s terrible.”

Wood: Our friendship went beyond just life during the season at the facility. One year, we did a Ryder Cup deal out in Arizona where I brought three people, he brought three people. It was out at his country club in Arizona. Everyone had to be in matching uniforms. We did a golf event like that one year. (On the golf course) he’s exactly like he is as a quarterback. He tries to swing a driver as hard as possibly can on every hole. He’s a pretty good golfer, but he takes a lot of risks.

You can’t talk about Fitzpatrick without mentioning the fearless way he played the position. It led to some interceptions, fumbles and big hits he didn’t need to take. He’s imperfect, but he’s never used those flaws as an excuse for inaction. He’s never going to run and hide. He’s going to try too hard and sometimes make the same mistakes repeatedly, but each time his teammates come out wanting to be a little bit better. They’re a little less afraid of their own flaws because they see their quarterback, their friend so willing to play free and have a blast doing it.

Wood: When you see a dude trying to run over safeties, at times you’re like, “You’re getting a little too old. You’re our starting quarterback. What are you doing?” But that type of stuff, when he hands the ball off and then tries to go throw a block, we watch that stuff on film like, “I’ll go block for that guy because he’s going to do whatever it takes.”

Jones: He was never scared to get out there and throw a block in front of a running back if we ran a reverse or double reverse. He would get out there and throw his body out there. It wasn’t conventional but he would at least get in the way. We had times where he was hurt, ribs broken, all types of stuff. He still would gut it out and make plays and throw the ball. When it comes to his toughness, there’s nothing bad you can say about it. He always found a way to gut everything out regardless of how he was feeling about it mentally and physically.

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Chambers: The thing is he wouldn’t let you know he was affected by that. As a quarterback, he could play a physical game, but he wouldn’t let you know he was affected by that. The focus was never on him. It was on other guys and lifting guys up. You would see that and think, “Man, if Fitz is taking hits I have to go do better for this man. I don’t want him to take anymore shots.”

Levitre: He wants to go make plays happen. He has the mindset to where, “Screw it, we’re going to make this work and get the job done.” It definitely exudes confidence in the huddle going out and playing with a guy like that who is willing to step up in the pocket and take a hit to try to make a play. You know some guys you see just kind of crumble, but Ryan doesn’t have that type of attitude. He’s a go-getter.

Chambers: He was always fun. He had this boyish excitement about playing football. Even today. You see him run and score a touchdown and see him squeal like a young girl. He’s having so much fun playing football. I love that about him. It really is infectious how you want to go play and have fun and win games. That’s ultimately what it’s about. You want to go compete and you want to go win. There’s so many distractions that occur where football gets pulled away from that, and Fitzy was always good about bringing it back to that and making football fun and exciting. He’s been able to do that his whole career. And I really admire that about him.

Former Bills receiver Terrell Owens: Once I got with Ryan Fitzpatrick, it was like Fitz Magic. I’ve spoken very highly of Ryan. People ask me who is your favorite quarterback and people think I’m saying it was a joke but I’m like, “Yo, Ryan is one of the better quarterbacks that I played with.” I say that honestly because of how smart he is. Maybe it has something to do with that Harvard education. He was smart enough to know this is a veteran guy that can still go. Let me put the ball in his hands and let’s go to work.

Chambers: Another thing is he’s super cool about understanding guys make mistakes. He’s just super positive. Like go make the next one. I remember we were playing Kansas City and Mike Vrabel beat me for a strip sack. I think we jumped back on the ball and we get back in the huddle and he’s like, “That’s alright, let’s go again.” It’s one of those things where he has your back. Rather than jump guys, he’s made the decision to be positive with his teammates and I think that’s why so many guys love playing with him. He’s just a man’s man. He has a way of pulling the best out of his teammates and getting them to perform his best. That was fun for me. He made me push farther than I thought I could go and do. That was my favorite year in the NFL playing in front of Fitzy. It wasn’t the greatest year for Buffalo, but I felt I was playing at the highest level I ever had played. He was a big part of that.

As Fitzpatrick’s teammates reflect on the type of person he is, it becomes clear why the soon-to-be-38-year-old keeps getting NFL chances. He has more interceptions and fumbles (246) than touchdowns (210), which causes many to wonder how he’s hung around so long. Nobody who has played with him is surprised. When he gets it rolling, he can help a team win games. He has the total package to carve out a long career. He’s a talented player who has the experience and smarts to pour into younger guys. And he showed last season he can still play.

Smith: Not to be rude, but if I tried to sit down and write the article you’re about to write, I don’t know that I’m qualified to do so. No different than people on the outside are just as unqualified to talk about who can or can’t play in this league for a certain amount of time. All the armchair geniuses out there who ever said Ryan Fitzpatrick couldn’t do this or couldn’t do that, then that just shows what a blessing it is to be able to be in these buildings and be a part of this business. You know, it’s just a close-knit, intimate deal to be able to wear these jerseys and have a job in the NFL.

Wood: I thought he could have played as long as he wanted because, starter or backup, he’s just so valuable to have in your organization because he’s so smart. He’s honestly like having another coach on staff. Even if he’s a backup, he’s going to prepare, he’s going to help the starter out, he’s going to read coverages for him. He’s going to do all of that because he’s so selfless. I felt like he could play as long as he wanted to. A couple of years ago, I asked him how many years he had left and he said, “It’s hard to say anymore because my boys are at the age where they think it’s really cool now where dad plays football. Even if I thought about quitting, I think they’d talk me back into it.” Kind of a cool deal where his kids and his older boys get to truly enjoy him being a starter.

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Jones: He’s been in the league a long time regardless of what anybody thinks about him. He’s still around. He’s impressed a lot of different coaches over the years and a lot of different teammates. He’s made an impression on a lot of different communities. The Buffalo community loves Fitz. Regardless of how many games he won or not, when he comes around it’s like, “Man, we love Fitz.” And they don’t even know him personally.

Chambers: We kind of had a joke. In the NFL the best backup quarterbacks are the ones who never play, because you never know what they can do. So you’re like, “Dude, that guy is a great backup quarterback.” And so I would always joke with Fitz and say, “Fitz, you are the freaking worst backup quarterback.” And then I say, “But you’re a pretty damn good starter and I’d want to play with you any time.” He always had this knack of getting into the game and then he’ll just torch it and light it up. So then people are like, “Oh, we have to ride this hot hand.” When he’s hot, there’s few quarterbacks who are more exciting to watch, just the way he throws the ball, his demeanor, the zip on the ball, it’s just fun to watch. Look, “You suck as a backup man.” Because he always find a way to get on the field. Even when he left Buffalo, I think he was with the Buccaneers and had a hot ride and then he got cold. That’s just typical Fitzy — he just gets on the field and finds a way to compete. Here he is at 37 years old playing for the Dolphins, playing at a high level and doing his thing.

(Top photo of Fitzpatrick with the Bills in 2012: Rick Stewart / Getty Images)

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