Ryan Fitzpatrick is ready for a fresh start with his ninth team in 17 seasons in the NFL at Washington Football Team training camp, but the journeyman quarterback is sounding off on his former team, the Miami Dolphins.
Fitzpatrick started the first six games last season in Miami, going 3-3, including wins in Weeks 5 and 6 when Fitzpatrick tossed a combined six touchdowns to two interceptions.
Then the Dolphins entered their bye week and decided that first-round pick Tua Tagovailoa would take over as the starter.
“I have a ton of respect for [Brian Flores], and we have a very good relationship, but I thought it was a joke at first,” Fitzpatrick recently said in an interview. “We’re putting Tua in? I was floored.”
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Fitzpatrick felt that he had shown enough to put the team in a position to succeed with him as starter.
“That was my team,” he said. “I fought through the s—t with those guys. I get the way that the NFL works. I get it. But to have it happen the way it did…”
Fitzpatrick was not the only one who felt this way on the team.
Offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, who was Fitzpatrick’s offensive coordinator in Buffalo, was also surprised by the decision.
“I was in total shock,” he said. “We didn’t even have a preseason. It was a totally new offense [for Tagovailoa]. We were just starting to hit our stride. We’d won two in a row and scored a bunch of points and moved the ball well. It came as a shock to me.”
Tagovailoa struggled, too, and Fitzpatrick was summoned from the bench on two occasions to replace him, including leading the Dolphins on a game-winning drive against the Raiders in Week 15.
Fitzpatrick signed a one-year, $10 million contract with Washington in the offseason — the defending NFC East champs who are looking to return to the postseason.
“This is the best is situation I’ve ever been in,” Fitzpatrick said. “If you think about my career, this is only the third time that I’ve signed somewhere to be a starter. You just walk with a little but more ownership of what’s going on.”
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