Should Miami Dolphins fans be worried about Ryan Fitzpatrick? Not yet

Ryan Fitzpatrick missed practice today and the Miami Dolphins entertained a QB yesterday.

Miami Dolphins fans are concerned over Ryan Fitzpatrick missing practice today and Brian Flores who said it was for personal reasons did nothing to calm them.

Dolphins fans are notorious about connecting dots and most of the time they are not numbered like those little kids dot-to-dot pictures. In this case, the dots are simple but are they being connected wrong.

Dots: Jake Ruddock – Ryan Fitzpatrick missed practice – Brian Flores says “personal” reasons – something is wrong with Fitzpatrick.

It is literally that simple. I don’t want to single anyone out on Twitter but the logic of this concern seems to be more a direction of “why are the Dolphins looking at another QB if they are it must be because Fitzpatrick is going to miss significant time”.

Or maybe the Dolphins are doing their due diligence just in case a problem arises later. Earlier today we looked at the Jake Ruddock situation and Ryan Fitzpatrick’s missing practice but that snowballed into a “Who will start if Fitzpatrick misses the season?”.

Well, we are still a few weeks away from that and we have learned that Fitzpatrick is not on the COVID list. There is no reason to speculate about what the problem may be because we simply have no clue at this point, other than it is personal.

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Rather than simply rehash what we discussed earlier, let us play doom card here and look at what it would mean if Fitzpatrick was not ready or back for the start of the season.

Non-football injury list

The first sign of an issue would be a NFI designation for Fitzpatrick. That would allow the team to open a spot on the roster for Ruddock or any other quarterback that they would want to bring in.

Released

It would be an extreme situation that would have the Miami Dolphins releasing Fitzpatrick so I wouldn’t lean to far over into this category.

Retirement

We don’t know what the “personal” reason is but if it was bad enough, Fitzpatrick could decide to call it a day and walk away.

Josh Rosen

The immediate impact would be Josh Rosen would almost 100% start the season as the teams starting quarterback. Rosen hasn’t looked great in camp but he has not looked as bad as Tua who is learning the NFL level of play (not a knock on Tua). Rosen has starting experience and while he has struggled, there have been really good throws and decisions made as well. He is just inconsistent.

Jake Ruddock

Honestly, I don’t see any way Ruddock starts the season or is even listed as the 2nd team quarterback. More likely he would become that COVID quarterback we hear so much about, sitting in the wings in case Miami needs a quick go-to QB. Which is another reason why the Dolphins may have brought him in yesterday.

Tua Tagovailoa

Tagovailoa is going to get more reps with Fitzpatrick gone for any length of time and frankly I don’t see any Dolphins fans complaining about that. While it is possible that he picks up his practices, it would become an intriguing camp competition between he and Rosen.

What losing Fitzpatrick would do, is clear the way for the Dolphins to bring Tua in earlier than they may have initially hoped. With Fitzpatrick starting, the Dolphins are more than willing to let things play out given his experience but if Rosen struggles, they are going to feel more pressure to play the younger guy who is the future.

All of this being said, we simply don’t know anything yet about why Fitzpatrick is out or how long he will be out. Brian Flores is very clear that he does not talk about these things so unless someone else does, we won’t know the situation only that Fitzpatrick will return or he won’t and I wouldn’t read too much into Ruddock just yet.

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