One of the added bonuses of Super Bowl week every year in the NFL is all of the access to other players that comes via the media. The Super Bowl is, of course, the culmination of a full season and endless hours of preparation — so the league and their players relish and celebrate putting a cap on it all every year, regardless of whether or not you’re playing in the big game. The Miami Dolphins didn’t make the big game and they even managed to miss the postseason despite winning 10 games on the year, making them the first AFC team to finish 8th in the conference standings in the 30 year history of the Wild Card era.
It was a tough break.
Speaking of tough breaks, you’ll have a hard time finding a Miami Dolphin player from the 2020 season who endured more tough breaks than Ryan Fitzpatrick. He was benched midway through the season despite playing at a high level and then was flagged for COVID-19 ahead of Week 17 — preventing him from suiting up in what could have been a playoff clinching game with a win. Instead, Fitzpatrick watched from home as the Dolphins got blown out by the Bills’ backups and Fitzpatrick once again missed the postseason.
And now, Fitzpatrick will apparently forge ahead with his playing career — as he indicated on Tuesday during an interview with Pat McAfee. A free agent and not likely to serve in a starting role in Miami after the team’s transition to Tua Tagovailoa, the man known as Fitzpatrick will need to search for and find the right fit. But he definitely wants to play.
“These last two years have really re-lit that fire underneath of me and I still want to play and I enjoy being out there playing,” he said.
But even if it doesn’t come in Miami, Fitzpatrick feels confident in the direction of the Dolphins thanks to the leadership of Brian Flores. And, interestingly enough, Fitzpatrick seems to recall the moment everything sort of snapped into place for the Dolphins’ head coach. It came midway through the 2019 season:
"Everybody was talking about the tank job & we were sitting there at 0-7, but there was a distinct change for him about halfway through that year & he really just decided to be himself"
Ryan Fitzpatrick on playing for HC Brian Flores #PatMcAfeeshowLIVE pic.twitter.com/WjbHfzeoL6
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) February 2, 2021
Prior to the Dolphins’ first win of the 2019 season, the Dolphins were 0-7 under the direction of Flores. In the 25 games since, Miami is 15-10 and trending in the right direction, even amid the disappointing close to the 2020 season with the 56-26 loss in Buffalo to close the season and slam the door shut on the Dolphins’ playoff hopes and aspirations.
Fitzpatrick was an essential piece to the cultural rebuild underway in Miami these past two years, and hopefully with time his contributions to the cause will be looked back upon fondly and without some of the frustrations the Dolphins fans expressed with his continued presence on the field amid the team’s initial push to turn the keys over to Tua Tagovailoa. But, to Fitzpatrick’s point, Flores handled that situation and many others in Miami very well — and that’s why the Dolphins appear to be in great hands moving forward.