Ryan Fitzpatrick Has Another Huge Game Presenting Buccaneers With Quarterback Dilemma

Ryan Fitzpatrick has been around the NFL awhile. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the 35 year old’s seventh NFL team since he entered the league in 2005. He’s been a starter, and he’s been a backup, and that was his role with Tampa Bay last season, backing up Jameis Winston. Winston is serving a three game suspension to open the 2018 season, so Fitzpatrick was supposed to keep the chair warm until Winston returned.

Well, it’s safe to say Fitzpatrick has exceeded all expectations and is blowing the doors off this thing. Fitzpatrick has thrown eight touchdown passes in Tampa Bay’s first two games, and leads the NFL in passing yardage with 819, and he has a quarterback rating of 151.5. Not surprisingly, the Buccaneers are 2-0 with Fitzpatrick under center, and the victories weren’t over bad teams. Tampa Bay won at New Orleans 48-40 in Week 1 and followed that up by beating defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia in Tampa 27-21 in Week 2.

Here’s a link to some highlights from the win over the Eagles.

Tampa Bay next hosts the Pittsburgh Steelers on September 24th on Monday Night Football. If Fitzpatrick puts up big numbers again and especially if the Bucs go 3-0, Tampa Bay head coach Dirk Koetter will have to decide if his quarterback plans will change or if he sticks to the script. Koetter said in his September 17th press conference that he’s not going into future quarterback plans at this point, which is a predictable response, but we can’t imagine benching Fitzpatrick in two weeks unless he’s really bad against the Steelers.