As year one of Thursday Night Football was a learning experience for Amazon, it was also the case for former quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick as a studio analyst on the broadcasts.
Fitzpatrick joined Pat McAfee on Thursday ahead of Amazon’s lone preseason broadcast featuring the Colts and Eagles. He said he felt really good about 2022.
“I loved it. I wasn’t sure going in,” he said. “I felt like it was a nice transition for me, though, to be able to still see my teammates every week. To form a new team with Andrew Whitworth, Sherm (Richard Sherman), Charissa (Thompson) and Tony (Gonzalez).”
Pat said Amazon getting a better slate of games for its TNF schedule would definitely get Fitzpatrick excited for the new season. They both agreed that play-by-play voice Al Michaels should be the most excited considering how vocal he was about the poor quality of most of the games he called last year.
But Fitzpatrick added that the presence of Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit in the booth legitimized the Amazon broadcast. It made it easier for Ryan to journey through something new alongside Sherman and Whitworth, who had also retired following the 2021 season.
“There were three of us that had never done it before,” Fitzpatrick said. “But we were fresh off the field.”
“Sherm is just so engaging and interesting you never know what’s going to happen with him,” he added. “And I learned to kind of poke him and prod him a little bit, push those buttons for some entertaining TV.”
