Ryan Fitzpatrick’s Former Teammate Called Him to Apologize for Leaking His Retirement

After former Bills running back Fred Jackson accidentally leaked the news of Ryan Fitzpatrick’s impending retirement last week, the former quarterback insists it was no big deal.

“Me and my oldest son made that ... word cloud or whatever you want to call it,” Fitzpatrick told MMQB‘s Albert Breer on Friday. “And I just sent it to a bunch of guys just to say thank you and how much I appreciated them. And Fred decided to tweet it out.” 

After Jackson realized that he upstaged his former quarterback’s announcement, he reached out to apologize. Fitzpatrick told Jackson that no apology was necessary.

“I just told him, ‘No worries,’” Fitzpatrick said. “If you look at that list, I mean Fred Jackson is the biggest font, and that is purposeful because he is and always will be my favorite teammate of all time. My son and I put all those names on there and tried to put everybody I ever played with, and I’m sure we missed a few. We tried our best. But the size of the name—everybody on there means something to me—but the biggest guys are the ones that had an enormous impact on me as a player and a human being. I wanted to make sure they saw and could feel my appreciation for what they did for me.” 

After one of the most interesting careers of all-time, the 39-year-old quarterback says that the injury he suffered with Washington last year was more serious than initially thought, and that the injury coupled with his seven children getting older were major factors in his decision to retire.