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Ryan Fitzpatrick on losing starting QB job: 'My heart just hurt all day'

"Move forward and embrace my new role," Fitzpatrick added.
Credit: Miami Dolphins

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Miami Dolphins quarterback and former Buffalo Bills quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick, spoke candidly on Wednesday after it was announced by the team that he was losing the starting QB role.

The team announced on Wednesday that Fitzpatrick has lost his starting QB job to rookie quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa.

Tagovailoa was drafted fifth overall in the 2020 NFL draft by the Dolphins and made his NFL debut this past week in the final seconds of the game against the New York Jets. The Dolphins won that game, 24-0.

"I was shocked by it. Definitely caught me off guard. It was a hard thing for me to hear yesterday, just kinda digesting the news," Fitzpatrick said to reporters during his press conference. 

"My heart just hurt all day. It was heartbreaking for me. And that's the decision and direction the organization is going in and obviously, ya know, we've talked in the past, me and you guys [media], about how I'm the placeholder and this eventually was going to happen, it was just a matter of when and not if, and it still just broke my heart and it's a tough thing to me to hear and now have to deal with, but I'm going to do my best with it."

Prior to this season beginning, Fitzpatrick won the starting QB job over Tagovailoa in training camp. The team had a 3-3 record on the season with Fitzpatrick as the starter and decided after their 24-0 win over the New York Jets, where Fitzpatrick three touchdowns, that they were going to start Tagovailoa over him for the game against the Rams after the team's bye week.

"Move forward and embrace my new role," Fitzpatrick added. "There was a lot of stuff going through my head from a personal standpoint, not just necessarily with the team, but is this it? Was that my last game as a NFL player, it terms of being the starter? You just go through all those different scenarios. I've been a starter, I've been benched all kinds of different ways but this one, more so than any of them; this organization and what we've been through the last year and a half, this was the first place other than Buffalo where I felt fully committed and invested and felt like it was my team. So to have that, I think that's a lot of the reason why my heart was so heavy yesterday, but that's the direction the organization is going and I've just got to accept it."

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