-Our next guest was an NFL quarterback for 17 seasons
and is now an analyst for Prime Video's
"Thursday Night Football," which premieres
next Thursday, September 15th.
Please welcome to the show Ryan Fitzpatrick, everyone.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Alright. -Thank you for being here.
-Thank you for having me. -So, 17 seasons in the league.
And I'm just wondering over the course of that time,
did you ever picture broadcasting
being the next step? Did you consider coaching?
Or did you just think you were going to play forever?
Because very few people do 17 years.
-I thought I could play forever. -[ Laughs ] Yeah.
-Had a hip injury last year,
so age started catching up with me a little bit,
but I think those are the two natural avenues --
coaching and broadcasting.
Just because it's something
I've essentially dedicated my whole life to doing.
But coaching is very hard. A lot of hours.
My kids would be, you know, not real happy with Dad,
so the broadcasting thing I think is going to be fun.
I think I've got a lot of experiences I can share.
And Amazon, with Prime Video
and this new "Thursday Night Football" package
seemed like the right fit for me.
-That's also a very important thing to note.
You actually had a broadcasting job,
a football broadcasting job, and you don't work weekends,
which is, for your children, very kind.
-Which is huge. -Yeah.
-So I can still be soccer dad.
I can still watch all of the stuff
that goes on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
It's going to be great.
-And we should know that you're not just a one-kid dad.
-We've got seven. We've got seven little ones.
-You've got seven kids. -Yeah, which you have three?
-I have three, and I'm walking around
being like, "I'm a real big shot," but, no.
-I will tell you, I also feel like I'm a big shot,
but my wife left out of town for about a week.
-Wow! -So I had all seven of them.
-And is it 3 to 15? Is that the ages?
-3 to 15. All the odd years in between.
And I just had to get out of the way.
They are well-trained.
They asked me to pour milk, like, in the cereal bowl.
That was, like, Dad's role for the week basically.
And then one of my four daughters
asked me to braid her hair.
So I've got the double braid where you start the braid,
and the hair gets all weird,
so you put the tie in and then you braid more.
I call it the double braid, and it's what they love.
-Okay. Great. What is the --
Just for the logistics of seven children,
what is the transportation situation?
-So, it's the only time we ever had to think about,
are we having another kid?
Because when you go from six to seven,
you go from minivan to something else.
So we no longer fit in a minivan.
We got a big old 12-passenger van,
which is great when all the kids are in it.
And then when I'm driving it by myself,
people are like, "Eh. I don't know about that guy."
-Yeah, I will say, like,
that beard and an empty passenger van?
-[ Laughs ] It's not great.
-It's not great. -Not great.
I often have lots of candy, too. -Oh, yeah.
Well, of course, seven kids. You're gonna have candy, yeah.
[ Laughter ]
Do you -- You played for -- How many different teams
did you play for over your 17 years?
-Nine. -Nine.
And does that mean that you have fan bases
everywhere that consider you one of theirs?
Are you often approached? -Yeah, I do.
I would say Buffalo,
the Jets, Miami --
those are probably the three --
Tampa. Those are the four that if I'm getting approached
in an airport, like, it's probably one of those four.
It's probably not St. Louis Rams
and Tennessee and Cincinnati and those teams.
But, yeah, it's always interesting, like,
"Okay, what are they going to come up
and say to me when they approach me?"
-How about New York? How do you get treated here?
-You know, 2015 season, if they remember you
from that season, they loved me, most of it.
2016, not so much.
So it's like a 50/50 proposition.
-This is from today. You got recognized.
-This is from today. We were having a slice of pizza.
[ Laughter ] -And this is --
I mean, that shows --
When you got a demographic of fan
who's not using a phone.
-Yeah.
So I think he may --
We were talking about streaming football on Thursday nights.
I don't know that he's going to be set up
for the first week to do it.
But we're going to get him his Prime membership.
-You mentioned Buffalo.
Buffalo had an incredible first week of playoff football
last year against the Patriots,
which is obviously a team, you know --
Everybody in the AFC East has had trouble
with the Patriots over the years.
Huge win. You went to the game.
First of all, very impressed.
You did not do the luxury-box path.
You went and sat with the fans.
How many of your kids did you bring with you?
-My two oldest.
At the time, my boys were 14 and 12.
-And it was negative-10 degrees. -Yeah.
-Here's the photo of you and I think your oldest.
Now, how did it come about
that you guys decided to go shirtless?
-The whole way walking through the parking lot into the gates,
well, they learned some new words.
We had a guy with a Mac Jones Jersey
walking by us, and so plenty of expletives being thrown.
But my boys the whole time were like,
"Dad. Shirts off. Shirts off."
So it was just -- I felt like I was in college again,
getting peer-pressured to, like, go drinking
or something, you know?
And so the Bills score seven touchdowns in a row,
which, like, has never happened.
And I thought, "This is the moment, boys."
And so we ripped them off and --
-I would imagine the fans in the area
were pretty proud of you as a former Bill.
-Well, and we had -- Then other people started
taking their shirts off, as well.
-So the peer pressure goes both ways.
-Yeah, it does, it does. -This is one of my favorites.
I remember this photo from a press conference.
DeSean Jackson was a wide receiver with you in Tampa.
And can you explain how you ended up in his clothes?
-So D-Jack walks through the locker room,
and what he's wearing, I just --
I felt like it was something I could never get away with.
Anything he wears looks cool. -Yeah.
-And I'm always complimenting him.
And so he walks through with this get-up and chains.
I'm like, "D-Jack, I could never wear that.
People would just laugh me off the stage, essentially."
And he said, "Well, if we win today, you're wearing it."
And so, we win the game, press conference comes up, and...
-And I got to be honest. You pull it off.
-It's not bad, right? -It's not bad.
-But he's -- It's really not bad.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you.
-Yeah.
-He's 60 pounds lighter than me, so it was a little snug.
-Yeah, it's a little snug,
but this is really the highest compliment.
I mean, I can tell you you pulled it off,
but then your son decided to wear it for Halloween.
-Yes. -So he really pulls it off.
[ Laughter and applause ]
-With the pencilled-in chest hair there, too.
With the pencilled-in chest hair.
For me, that's the highest compliment as a father --
your son dressing up like you for Halloween.
I felt like nowhere to go but down now as a father.
-Also, it should be noted Richard Sherman, Al Michaels --
You're really with one of the all-time greats in the booth.
-So, Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit,
which they're both -- The voices are iconic.
When Al's just telling a conversation
and he's speaking, he's ordering a steak for lunch,
you're just mesmerized by his voice.
Yeah, and then Richard Sherman is going to be great.
He's freshly off the field, as well.
And he's a defensive guy, so I think we're going to have
a lot of battles in terms of what we like going on
in the game and what we don't.
That's going to be real interesting.
And then the hall-of-famer Tony Gonzalez
and Charissa Thompson. -Well, it's a great group.
And it was really exciting and cool
to watch you for 17 years on the field,
and I'm really excited for this next chapter, as well.
Thanks for making time for us, man.
Ryan Fitzpatrick, everybody.
"Thursday Night Football"
premieres Thursday, September 15th, on Prime Video.
We'll be right back with more "Late Night."