Half of metropolitan New York’s nightmare is finally over as the Jets and Ryan Fitzpatrick beat the team’s self-imposed deadline and agreed to terms on a one-year, $12 million deal.

Finally: Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jets reach agreement on 1-year, $12 million, fully-guaranteed contract, sources tell ESPN.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 27, 2016

This was, in part a perfect negotiation.  The team wanted to sign Fitz for roughly $8 million.  The Harvard graduate saw the crazy market and believed his services were worth upwards of $16 million annually.

A deadline basically brought both sides to a meeting point just about in the middle at $12 million, with incentives that could be worth up to $15 million.

For the Jets, they basically return a functional offense that won 10 games a season ago and they no longer have the prospect of willingly starting Geno Smith on opening day.  Having Fitz in the fold allows the team to develop Christian Hackenberg for a season where hopefully he will be ready to take over the reigns in 2017.

Looking at it from the Fitzpatrick side, he gets one more shot to prove his worth as a starting quarterback with a very solid supporting cast around him, as well as a pretty good defense.  If he can navigate this team to the postseason, he can again test the market next season and secure another eight-figure payday.

The biggest losers in all of this were both Jets’ quarterbacks Geno Smith and Bryce Petty.  One of them won’t be on the opening day roster barring a major injury at the position.  Smith has once again had a potential starting job pulled out from in front of him and Petty has virtually no chance to make the roster with Fitzpatrick, Smith and Hackenberg already on it.

This was really the one negotiation where neither side was believed to be prepared to walk away from the table.  The Jets were never going to let the quarterback who led them to double-digit wins leave over a few million dollars.  Fitzpatrick had no other options for a starting job and although he’s financially responsible and stable, he was never going to walk away from close (and exceeding) an eight-figure salary.