Ryan Fitzpatrick – May 21, 2020
Download PDF version
Thursday, May 21, 2020
QB Ryan Fitzpatrick
(How long has the beard been going?) – ”Ever since they shut down barbershops. There is really only two people in the country that I trust to touch this thing. One is in Tampa, one is in New Jersey. It’s been going ever since everything got shutdown. But, the neck hair is out of control right now. I’m glad you can’t see it. (laughter)”
(Tell us what’s it been like locked in the house with all of those kids running around?) – “It’s been a little bit crazy, but we’re out in Arizona and my brother lives next door and he has five kids, so that’s 12 running around every day. We have a bit of space here, so that part of it, the kids haven’t even noticed other than having to go to school online and doing some of their school work right away. It’s actually been a good time just to get away from everything else and reconnect with everybody and just be with family and enjoy each other. We have breakfast, lunch and dinner together. We haven’t left the house a whole lot, other than to go get groceries or the golf course every now and then. It’s been good for us in the sense that we’ve gotten to spend a lot of quality time together.”
(I’m sure you had expected the Dolphins to take a quarterback. Obviously they did so. What’s you thought process on that and your role in QB Tua Tagovailoa’s development?) – “I think just like everybody else, it was expected that if there was a guy that they liked in one of those selections, they were going to pick somebody. Tua happened to be the guy in that spot and obviously they really liked him. So for me, I’ve been in this situation before a little bit. I just try to go in every day and be myself. Even in the Zoom meetings right now, I just be myself. I’m an open book and try to make sure that they know and are comfortable with coming to me with questions. I’m also going to express my opinions and thoughts on plays that we are watching and 2-minute drives. We’ve been going over some of that stuff, and my mind and the process and how I think through it, right or wrong, just to provide some perspective. I’m excited for him to be here. I loved watching him play in college. I think he’s going to be an awesome addition to the team for a long time.”
(You had one of your best statistical seasons of your career playing for Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey. How similar to what you did then are you learning now and why did you have so much success under Chan back in New York?) – “I think being in his system for five years and a couple of different teams with a bunch of personnel, Chan was really the first guy to truly believe in me and gave me my shot as a starter. I’ve just always wanted to prove him right and to play well for him. He’s the guy that allows players to play to their strengths, he’s got an offense that is not very complicated to learn, but very complicated for defenses in the way it is presented to them. He does a great job utilizing different guy’s talents and putting them in position to succeed. Not necessarily telling them there is a certain way to do it, but allowing them some freedom and some creativity within certain constraints, to do the best job that they can. I think guys have enjoyed playing for him for that reason. I’ve got a ton of confidence and trust in him, and I know he feels that same way about me.”
(You obviously have seen what the team has done this offseason. What are your thoughts about the 2020 Dolphins as they look on paper?) – “It’s difficult not being there because we are very young. There is going to be a lot of new faces with guys they brought in through free agency or guys the brought in through the draft. There are a lot of new faces, a lot of youth, so with that, you want to get on the field, you want to start practicing, you want to start learning the system and learning each other. I think they’ve evaluated this team. They got to watch 16 games last year and figure out what they liked and what they didn’t like. For us as players, we just sit back and hope we can be a part of it. We trust that they are doing the right thing and bringing in the right guys. The holdovers, or the guys that are still here, are the guys they obviously liked last year and have some of the right attributes and some of the right things they are looking for. Having the fifth pick in the draft, obviously it wasn’t a successful year last year; but I think there is some stuff that happened that we can really build on. With these new guys coming in, bringing them up to speed and making sure their mentality fits what we are trying to get done, that will be important for us. It’s been tough on those Zoom meetings, but we are doing the best we can with what we have.”
(You’ve been in the league for a while, you’ve had a lot of teammates from teams over the years, players that you’ve been in contact with now. What’s the general gist that you get from players around the league and including yourself about returning to the facilities, playing football with this coronavirus thing going on, and how safe you would feel getting back to the field and back into the building?) – “There is so much uncertainty right now, so I think a lot of it for us as players, and kind of the approach or mentality that we have to take, is we’re going to trust the experts. Whatever they say, the guidelines that they set forth, we’ve got to trust them because we know they are going to error on the side of caution. This thing, it changes every day. There is new information, there’s different information, there’s shifts every single day, so it’s hard for us. I think the approach that we are taking is focus every day on what we can control, and that’s our Zoom meetings and trying to do the best we can to learn this offense and communicate, and getting the workouts in on our own – trying to get ourselves in shape so that whenever this thing starts back up, that we are ready to go. It’s been difficult. The lockout year, the 2011 deal, was nothing like this because even finding fields or going to throw with guys, or guys getting on airplanes, that’s just not happening right now. There are a lot of things that are even different from the offseason that we experienced that year. I think the biggest thing is trust the experts and we will see where it goes.”
(What was it like to hear – I don’t know if you did hear but in the offseason, Head Coach Brian Flores and General Manager Chris Grier sang praises of you and what you did last season. They basically said this is your team. What’s that like and do you remember at a point, maybe the Bills, where someone said this is your team as a quarterback?) – “My career has definitely been a progression – finally becoming a starter and then trying to hang onto that job, trying to hang onto that job, wavering in confidence a little bit. Right now where I’m at in my career, it’s nice to hear those things; but those are things that you see and feel every day with your teammates, that I was able to see and feel every day at the end of last year. The way we kind of had things going and the confidence we had in the building. So that stuff is nice to hear but you can kind of feel it throughout the building as well. For me, the position of quarterback is such a leadership position, and I think it’s important to have somebody the guys look up to and respect, the way that you work, the way that you go about your business. It’s humbling for me to hear those things but also knowing the way my teammates feel about me.”
(I know you said that you haven’t been able to get out and through or anything like that. But are there people there in Arizona that you can at least have run routes for you? Do the 12 kids go out there and catch balls for you or anything like that. Are you getting any of that type of work in?) – “I really don’t – the past eight or nine years, I don’t throw a whole lot during the offseason. I just like to let my arm rest a little bit, then as OTAs start to ramp up – we’ll see what happens here in the next few weeks. I don’t like to take more throws in the offseason than I need to. I’m doing a little bit right now but nothing crazy.”
(I know you had talked to your buddy Eric Wood on your podcast this week. You mentioned that you will be Tua Tagovailoa’s biggest cheerleader. How do you balance that – him being the future – with you knowing that you’re obviously a competitor that wants to be that 2020 present?) – “I’m as competitive as they come, so I want to go out there and start. I know there are a lot of forces that go into it from all kinds of different sides. Whether that happens or not, who knows. I know that in order for our team to be successful, whoever is playing from that quarterback room has to be successful. Whether that’s me out there, doing everything I can to put the team in position to win, or whether that’s somebody else – be it Tua that is out there doing it – I’m going to do the best I can to help him to make sure our position is doing the things that are going to make our team win. That’s my mentality, that’s how I think about it. You know me very well I think from last year, and you know I want to be out there competing on Sundays.”
(I’m really interested in those two hour Zoom calls you guys have been doing. Can you kind of help me explain how Offensive Coordinator Chan Gailey and others sort of install an offense virtually? Is it a dry erase board, is it a chalkboard? Do they put plays on the screen digitally?) – “I think every team is probably doing it a little differently; but some of it you have to rely on guys to do some studying away from those calls at home. I think one of the things that we have found – this is new for everybody so it’s still a work in progress for us – but the one thing we’ve found is instead of having humongous meetings where it’s the whole offense, or the whole team, being able to break it down to individual groups and have a couple of groups in a Zoom at the same time where there can be open and fluid conversations and questions, that’s been the most effective for us. Really breaking it down into small groups and having an open forum and having guys ask questions. I think because of the setting we’re in, guys will be a little bit more free to ask questions and maybe not as shy to chime in or to raise their hand virtually – the different things you can do. I think they have been pretty productive. I don’t think it’s been perfect by any means and I’d much rather do it in person; but we’re doing the best we can and I think they have been productive.”
