QB Fitzpatrick: Best, Last NFL Playoffs Shot With Washington?

He doesn't have many more chances to play deep into January. This might be Ryan Fitzpatrick's last dance.

ASHBURN, Va. -- The Washington Football Team's acquisition of 38-year old Ryan Fitzpatrick has surprisingly not been met with a lot of criticism.

Why criticize? Well, he's on his ninth team in his 17th season, and Fitzpatrick has never helped lead a team to the playoffs.

Fitzpatrick has appeared in 165 NFL games, and not a single game  in the postseason.

This isn't necessarily an indictment of his talents, or a prediction for 2021. But ... Once you get a label, it's hard to shake it.

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Yet here he is. By many names -- "Fitz-Magic" (hopefully he won't be "Fitz-Tragic" very often) with perhaps his best, last shot?

"After this last season, it’s just—the climb that I’ve made in my career, I’m playing better right now than I’ve ever played in my career," Fitzpatrick told reporters last week. "I just feel like I’ve got a lot of great football ahead of me, which sounds crazy being 38 years old and figuring some things out about myself. I love football. I love the competition. I love the camaraderie. I love working together as a team for a common goal."

That goal is not only to make the playoffs - again, for the first time in Fitzpatrick's career - but also to win a playoff game for the first time in Washington since 2005. 

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If Washington makes the playoffs again this year, against a first-place schedule and 17 games, it might rest on the arm of Fitzpatrick and whether he can finally climb that mountain. He's going to need plenty of tricks and maybe some smoke. 

How does he describe the 'magic' that he's been known to create?

"I think there are just times in games where I just get excited,'' he said. "I try to play with passion. I try to make sure that rubs off on my teammates. If you talk to a lot of my former teammates, I think they’ll tell you they enjoyed playing with me. For me, it’s real. It’s who I am. I just try to bring guys around me up.''

In 2021, the idea is to "bring the guys'' - and himself - "up'' in the NFL postseason.