Fitzpatrick will miss at least 3 games with a hip injury

Taylor Heinicke to start

Veteran quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick suffered a subluxation, or partial dislocation, of his right hip during the Washington Football Team’s season-opening loss to the Los Angeles Chargers and will be placed on injured reserve, coach Ron Rivera said Monday.

Fitzpatrick will miss at least three weeks and possibly more, as he and the team receive further details from a second doctor’s opinion. In his absence, Taylor Heinicke will be Washington’s starting quarterback and Kyle Allen his backup.

“We want to make sure we get as good an answer as to what’s going on so we know how to handle everything going forward,” Rivera said. “… It is frustrating, but hopefully with the situation we have right now, we can go forward. … We like the guys that we have, we’ve had them play for us, they’ve done some good things for us.”

Fitzpatrick, 38, was sacked on a pass play with nine minutes remaining in the second quarter of Sunday’s game, when Chargers edge rusher Uchenna Nwosu slipped past Washington left tackle Charles Leno Jr. and slammed the quarterback to the ground. Fitzpatrick lay motionless for a bit before trying to stand, only to sit back down, grimacing in pain as trainers came onto the field. He was ruled out of the remainder of the game shortly after walking gingerly back to the locker room with trainers. Fitzpatrick played only 16 snaps and completed 3 of 6 passes for 13 yards.

The injury is a disappointing setback both for Fitzpatrick — the 16-year journeyman who signed a one-year contract as a free agent this offseason — and Washington, which is again being forced to overcome an injury to its starting quarterback after years of instability at the position.

The team will have to quickly regroup, as it prepares for a divisional game against the New York Giants at FedEx Field on Thursday night. Heinicke will start and Allen, who started four games last season before suffering a season-ending ankle injury, will be his backup.

On Monday morning, the team signed Kyle Shurmur to its practice squad, giving it a third quarterback on the roster who could be elevated to the active roster for the game, if needed. The former Vanderbilt quarterback and the son of Denver Broncos offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, Kyle Shurmur went undrafted in 2019 and has since bounced on and off the practice squads of the Kansas City Chiefs and Cincinnati Bengals. But his only NFL experience is in the preseason, and he’ll have had only

one full practice with Washington before Thursday’s game.

The focus going forward is on Heinicke, who re-signed in the offseason after an impressive outing against the eventual Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round of the playoffs. Although Rivera preached competition in camp, Fitzpatrick was always the intended starter, largely because of his 16 seasons of NFL experience.

Yet Heinicke’s ability to step in midgame and energize the offense Sunday was reminiscent of his performance in the playoffs; his mobility and knack for adjusting on the fly has kept drives alive, and his confidence in the huddle has earned him the respect of his teammates. Plus, he knows Washington’s coaches and offensive system well; current Washington offensive coordinator Scott Turner was his quarterbacks coach in Minnesota and Carolina before they reunited in Washington.

“I think our guys will rally around him,” Rivera said. “It’s just one of those things that some guys have an innate ability to create some enthusiasm, some excitement, and that’s what Taylor is because of the way he plays. He plays a little bit like his hair is on fire, plays a little bit like a gunslinger.”

But whether Heinicke can start as long as Washington needs him is unknown. He’s only started two games in his career, and he suffered injuries in both. He has never played more than six games in a season (2018 with the Carolina Panthers).

Heinicke now joins a lengthy, and growing, list of quarterbacks that have started for Washington in recent years. Since 2010, the team has had 14 different players start at least one game, including Heinicke’s postseason start. And no Washington quarterback has started a full season since Kirk Cousins in 2017.

“It’s the nature of the game, though,” Rivera said. “First of all, it’s the most important position on your team. Secondly, the nature of the game is it’s a physical game and it’s going to happen. Unfortunately, it’s happened to us more than we need to have it in the last season and a game. You just hope that we can get a streak where we can keep guys on the field for a long time and benefit from their abilities.”

Rivera said that for now the team doesn’t plan to pursue any quarterbacks in free agency. The available options are limited, although they do include one who knows Washington’s coaching staff: Cam Newton, who was cut by the New England Patriots in August and whom Rivera declined to sign in 2020, when Newton was a free agent.

For Fitzpatrick, the injury creates uncertainty about his future. The length of his recovery will be dependent on the full extent of the injury.

“Instead of a dislocation, where the ball comes completely out of the socket, a subluxation would mean that it started to but didn’t go all the way,” said Brian Schulz, a sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles. “The hip is a very stable joint, so for a hip to get dislocated it would create either an injury to the bone or an injury to the labrum or both. A subluxation is not quite as severe.

“If there’s no soft-tissue injury, then it would really just be rest, rehab and you wouldn’t have to do much else. If he had a fracture or an injury to the labrum, that might be a surgical issue, depending on how severe it is.”

Schulz added that even in the worst cases, athletes can return to their previous level. “In a nonsevere case, [Fitzpatrick] could be back pretty quickly if everything is okay,” he said.

Fitzpatrick signed with Washington in March, believing the team’s need for an experienced quarterback provided the optimal setup for him after years of serving as a backup or fill-in starter. But he’ll be 39 years old in November, and if Heinicke plays well in his absence, the team will face the decision of whether to stick with Heinicke or return to Fitzpatrick.

But for now, Rivera said the team’s focus is on Thursday night.