Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick was sacked a lot in 2019. 40 times, to be exact. The wily old veteran was taken down on nearly seven and a half percent of his drop-backs last season — a career high for Fitzpatrick over his 15-year (and counting) NFL career. The long-time journeyman hasn’t often led the NFL in passing categories over that stretch, which is exactly what you’d expect from a journeyman quarterback. But of the few times he’s led the league in more advanced statistics, the numbers are pretty telling for what the Miami Dolphins fans should expect for 2020.
No, we aren’t talking about his NFL-leading 23 interceptions with the Buffalo Bills in 2011.
We’re talking about his NFL best 3.3% sack rate back in 2015 with the New York Jets. That year saw Fitzpatrick sacked 19 times of 562 pass attempts — and is one of just a slew of examples of Fitzpatrick’s play under Chan Gailey mitigating offensive line issues. Fitzpatrick has played five seasons under new Miami Dolphins offensive coordinator Chan Gailey.
- 2010-2012 with the Buffalo Bills
- 2015-2016 with the New York Jets
And over those five seasons combined, Fitzpatrick was sacked a total of 114 times — for an average of 22.8 sacks per season under Chan Gailey. The highest sack total Fitzpatrick took under Gailey as his playcaller was 30 times in 2012. In both 2015 & 2016 with the Jets, Fitzpatrick was only sacked 19 times each season.
How?
The style of the offense enables a quick trigger throwing the football. And Fitzpatrick was already one of the NFL’s fastest triggers in 2019 to begin with — his 2.61 seconds from snap to release on average last season was only bested by Andy Dalton and Drew Brees.
So take low sack numbers over Fitzpatrick’s 5-year sample size of working with Chan Gailey, add on a drastic shift in offensive philosophy for Miami from 2019 to 2020 and a drastically improved offensive line and what do you get?
Hopefully a lot less plays with the quarterback on the ground this season.