We saw Fitzpatrick get benched two weeks in a row for complete ineptitude. We saw Rosen come in and look like the best player on offense for two weeks (though admittedly that was a really low bar).
Yeah he got benched. And that was actually a dumb move by Flores that may have been good in the short term but it was losing the war. Washington was a total team failure. Yeah Fitzpatrick came in and generated instant offense. he's a 15 year veteran who knows how to air it out and the opponent, who had a coaching staff with 9 toes in the grave, wasn't prepared for him. I remember when Sage Rosenfels lead two great comebacks off the bench. I remember Matt Moore leading a nice comeback and then an almost comeback a few weeks later. I remember when Jay Fiedler came in and beat Washington off the bench and then fell flat on his face when we played real opponents towards the end of the season. Lots of QBs come in off the bench and surprise an opponent. It would happen more often but it undermines the starting QB. But Flores never wanted Rosen to be the starting QB, and he had let the team become so unrespectable that he needed to get wins somehow, and he correctly surmised that Fitzpatrick would give us a chance of winning in Washington and probably winning a game or two down the road. It was the safe pick. Flores watched Rosen generate offense three games in a row in the preseason, while Fitz basically played 5 quarters of inept football and then lead a single drive for Flores to anoint him on, and he criticized Rosen's every move in the preseason even when it was the exact same stupid **** that Fitz does recklessly and gets praised for. And then he held him out of preseason week four just to avoid the possibility of Rosen showing him up. And when he did give Rosen a shot he sprung his first start against a red hot team on him on short notice, and he did respectable before adjustments took our ability to do anything away.
All ya'll love Flores right now for some fake kicks, fourth down conversions, and teaching second rate players to not commit penalties. To me, its clear he doesn't know how to make big picture decisions, and that does in most NFL head coaches. He may end up being a good game day coach but will undermine his own chance for success with decisions he makes before the game is played. Even one of the best coaches in the NFL fell flat on his face due to big picture decisions when it came time to follow up overachievement with actual contention.
