Former Broncos Cornerback Goes Off On Ex-QB Analyst

Former  NFL quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick had a lot of people nodding in agreement when he made his comments about the performance of Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix after Thursday night’s 17-14 Denver win in overtime  over the Seattle Seahawks, but a certain former Broncos star wasn’t one of them. 

Aqib Talib has always had a reputation for being feisty and speaking his mind, and he took Fitzpatrick’s comments about Nix personally. 

The former quarterback called Nix’s performance “garbage,” which was certainly inflammatory but also accurate, and Talib fired back with both barrels in his response, according to a report from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. 

Talib chose to make it about Fitzpatrick back when he was a quarterback, which wasn’t all that relevant, but it was entertaining. He pointed toward Fitzpatrick’s 17-year career, which had more than its share of awful performances, and while we can’t print some of what the former Denver Broncos said, the gist of it was that he didn’t think much of the former quarterback as a player. 

We’ll summarize by saying that a key point was the fact that Fitzpatrick played for nine teams in his career, and Talib said “nobody wanted his [expletive].” The cornerback also added details, saying that Fitzpatrick played 17 year and made 147 starts and “never sniffed a playoff game.” He’s also apparently memorized the quarterback’s stat sheet, adding that Fitzpatrick finished his career with 169 interceptions. 

If you’re curious about where Talib is coming from here, consider this. The cornerback also mentioned that Amazon is “begging” ex-players like Fitzpatrick to “blabber out some [expletive]” to be more entertaining, and he finished by saying that nobody was worried about playing against the quarterback back in the day. 

A good part of what Talib said it true, but so is what Fitzpatrick said. The two were scheduled to be media colleagues on Thursday Night Football, but Talib had to step aside from the job after his brother shot and killed a man at a youth football game, as Florio pointed out. Talib is well aware of what top-tier analysts are making these days versus what he would have been paid back then, so that might have had something to do with the back-and-forth as well. 

Will Fitzpatrick fire back? Well, he did, sort of, but in a comedic way. He came up with a video in which he talks to Talib using the cornerback’s own words from the rant, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that’s going to get Talib’s back up even more.