Ryan Fitzpatrick to Start Again at QB for the Miami Dolphins in Week 5

The Miami Dolphins announced on their Twitter account Tuesday morning that veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick again would start at quarterback in Week 5

Veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick will remain the Miami Dolphins starting quarterback for their Week 5 game against the San Francisco 49ers.

The team made the announcement on its Twitter account. Head coach Brian Flores is not scheduled to speak to the media until Wednesday.

Ryan Fitzpatrick will be the starter for Week 5 against the 49ers. pic.twitter.com/DxbiFbwxgD

— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) October 6, 2020

The announcement came after Flores stopped short of making a definitive statement about his starting quarterback Monday, one day after the Dolphins' 31-23 loss against the Seattle Seahawks.

“We’re still going through corrections of the game from yesterday," Flores said Monday. "As a staff, we normally start talking about this this evening. I thought we moved the ball pretty efficiently yesterday. Look, I understand where everybody’s coming from with Tua. I get all that. At the same time, he’s a young player, he’s coming off the injury. So we’ll make the decision on the starter, but I would presume it’s going to be Fitzpatrick.”

Fitzpatrick was 29-of-45 for 315 yards against Seattle, but had no touchdowns with two interceptions and failed to get the Dolphins into the end zone until the final two minutes despite moving the offense inside the Seahawks 30-yard line five previous times. Fitzpatrick scored the Dolphins' only touchdown on a 10-yard run and followed with a two-point conversion with a pass to Preston Williams.

“I’ve been around Fitz for a long time and I’ve seen him play very, very well," offensive coordinator Chan Gailey said Tuesday. "And I’m a glasses-half-full kind of guy. I see great things coming in the future and that’s how I see it. It’s easy to point fingers. That’s the easiest thing in the world is to point fingers. If you want to point fingers, you ought to point them at me because I could have helped us a lot better in the red zone and done a better job of red-zone coaching this past week and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. I think he is capable of being very good for us.”

Rookie Tua Tagovailoa, the fifth overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft, has not played a down all season.

Gailey said Tagovailoa is ready for game action, if needed.

“We get him ready every week and we have what he feels comfortable," Gailey said. "I do that with Fitz too. I say, ‘What are you most comfortable with?’ So we ask Tua, ‘What are you most comfortable with?’ so that if he has to go in the game, I feel like he’ll go in and play well.

"He’s a rookie. He hasn’t played a preseason game. He hasn’t been in a game at all, so it’ll be a new experience for him. He’ll have to go in there with eyes wide open, but I think, knowing the person he is and the type of preparation that he puts in, I think he’s going to be ready when his time comes.”

Tagovailoa, who is now 11 months removed from the hip injury that cut short his brilliant career at the University of Alabama, has not appeared on the Dolphins injury report since the week of the season opener and Flores said he had checked all the medical boxes.

Flores added, though, that he would not "rush" Tagovailoa into the lineup.

"Look, the honest thing from me is if he was my kid and he had a serious injury like that, I wouldn’t want his coach to be in a rush to throw him in there because of media pressure or anything like that.," Flores said. "That’s kind of how I approach this situation and really all situations, the players. Essentially they are my kids. No one is going to pressure me into doing anything. When we feel like he’s ready to go, we’ll put him in.”

For the season, Fitzpatrick has completed 98 of 142 passes (69 percent) for 994 yards with four touchdowns and five interceptions, and a passer rating of 83.5. He set a Dolphins single-game record for completion percentage in a 31-13 victory against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 3 when he completed 18 of 20 passes.

Fitzpatrick had no touchdowns and five interceptions in the games against New England in Week 1 and against Seattle, and four touchdowns and zero interceptions against Buffalo in Week 2 and against Jacksonville in Week 3.

“The biggest problem for Fitz is when defenses don’t do what they’re supposed to do, when a guy gets out of position and they’re not where they’re supposed to be," Gailey said. "Because he knows, he’s studied and he knows where they’re supposed to be and what they’re supposed to do, and that’s the biggest problem. Interceptions are going to happen. We all want to go back to statistics because that’s the one thing you can put your finger on. But there’s a lot more to the game than statistics. He does a lot for this football team that statistics don’t show.”