The Miami Dolphins’ late score courtesy of third-string quarterback Jake Rudock had Miami ready to roll out of the Bay area at 2-0 for the preseason, but Tampa Bay’s third stringers had other plans, zipping down the field in less than a minute to set up a game winning field goal.
But remember — this is the preseason. There are more important things at stake than wins and losses at this point. For the Dolphins? Life right now revolves around a pair of signal callers trying to state their case to be Miami’s starting quarterback in 2019.
The Dolphins started Josh Rosen on Friday night, a surprising swing of events after weeks of reports that Rosen was far behind the veteran Fitzpatrick. Of course those reports ignore Rosen out-playing Fitzpatrick in the team’s faux scrimmage and in Miami’s first preseason contest against the Falcons.
Was Brian Flores pleased with Rosen’s 10/18 for 102 yard performance?
“I thought (Rosen) played well in the first half. I thought he made some smart decisions early. I’d like to see him not take those couple of sacks on that one series. He did step up in the pocket on that one,” said Flores.
“Overall, he had good command of the huddle. He did a lot of good things overall. It didn’t help when you had two dropped balls that would’ve kept those drives going a little longer.”
Those two drops came off the hands of wide receiver Preston Williams — one of which could have possibly been a long touchdown run as Williams had ample room to run. But for as frustrating as it was to see one of Miami’s possessions totally destroyed with sacks of Josh Rosen, Ryan Fitzpatrick’s third quarter performance was honestly worse — and not just from a protection standpoint.
Fitzpatrick fired passes high, he had throws batted down at the line of scrimmage and finished the night 3 of 9 passing for 20 yards.
Does that mean Fitzpatrick has played himself out of the competition?
“Nah, we will probably start (Fitzpatrick) next week,” said Flores last night at the post-game press conference.
