The Miami Dolphins have a unique quarterback conflict on their hands. The team has drafted Tua Tagovailoa with the No. 5 overall pick to be the quarterback of the future — but veteran passer Ryan Fitzpatrick refuses to cooperate with the succession plan: he’s generally playing good football and has Miami on one of their best scoring stretches in recent memory. Miami’s last four games? 28 points, 31 points, 23 points and 43 points. All the while, Fitzpatrick is currently ranked 5th in ESPN’s QBR metric, designed to offer a contextualized look and which passers are playing the best ball on any given Sunday.
And while Ryan Fitzpatrick will be the first to tell you he’s not super dialed in to the metric outlook of his season, he does feel as though QBR offers him a fair shake versus the standard quarterback rating measurement.
“I think you don’t really pay too much attention to any of that stuff, but I think that (QBR) is probably a better metric of overall quarterback play than just the regular QB rating. That one, to me, matters more than the blanket quarterback rating one,” said Fitzpatrick.
That’s a wise answer, given that Fitzpatrick currently ranks higher than Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson and nearly every other passer in the league. Who ranks ahead of Ryan Fitzpatrick as of the start of Week 6?
- Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay
- Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City
- Josh Allen, Buffalo
- Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee
- Ryan Fitzpatrick, Miami
That’s it. That’s the entire list. And Fitzpatrick’s 82.6 QBR ranks just three tenths of a point behind Ryan Tannehill for fourth in the league. Why does it matter? And how can that be such a significant deviation from the traditional passer rating, which ranks Fitzpatrick 17th in the NFL (95.3)? Fitzpatrick himself was able to explain why that metric matters more to him.
“I’m definitely not an expert, but I think if you throw an interception down three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, it probably shouldn’t weigh as much as throwing an interception up a score or in the first quarter with the game on the line,” said Fitzpatrick.
“All the stats that you can kind of accumulate when you’re behind – some meaningless stats – I think being able to avoid negative plays, sacks and those type of things are important for a quarterback. I think it’s a – even just the running and the scrambles and things like that – there are just a lot of things that it takes into account that aren’t necessarily, that either don’t show up on a stat sheet or they weight stats based on how important it is in the game. I think that is a lot of the reason for me as to why that one carries much greater weight for me.”
And if Fitzpatrick is to be believed, you’ll have a hard time finding more clear evidence that Miami is right to hold off on the Tagovailoa era at quarterback.