Fitz played well enough, for me, the first half of the season, that he has earned the benefit of a doubt.
The prevailing (stupid) theory, at the time, was that he singed his big new contract, and then rested on his laurels and stunk it up the rest of the season. That doesn't hold water for me... the huge hit he took against the Redskins makes more sense to me.
There is nothing I have seen from him, or heard from Gailey/Nix (both pretty consistently candid) to suggest that he just stopped trying...that is not to say he didn't have some problems before that Skins game.
We already knew, going into last season, Fitz does not posses the strongest arm...but he does posses a good amount of confidence, IMO. So, you have a QB who put together a nice start, because he wasn't afraid (like his two predecessors) to throw the ball into tight coverage, and trust his receivers to get the ball...even before that big hit, from what I saw, Fitz had to put too much of his body into his throws...with broken ribs, that has got to be even more difficult. Also, you can't underestimate the injury woes the Bills had in the second half of the season, and how little constancy they had along the O-line, and the receiving corp.
Fitz still gets some slack from me...but not an unlimited amount. After what we (Bills fans) have seen since Bledsoe left, leadership qualities and confidence are real, valuable commodity's for an NFL QB. Fitz is not perfect, but he has a lot of good qualities going for him, I am ready to give him a chance to see