"I was shocked by it. It definitely caught me off guard. It was a hard thing for me to hear yesterday, just kind of digesting the news. My heart just hurt all day. It was heartbreaking for me," Fitzpatrick said Wednesday. "Flo kind of said what he said and said what he said to you guys as well, and that's the decision and the direction that the organization is going in."
"Obviously we've talked in the past, me and you guys, about how I'm the placeholder and this eventually was going to happen," Fitzpatrick added. "It was just a matter of kind of when, not if. It still just ... it broke my heart yesterday. It's a tough thing for me to hear and to now have to deal with, but I'm going to do my best with it."
"There was a lot of stuff going through my mind yesterday, just from a personal standpoint, not necessarily with the team," Fitzpatrick said. "Is this it? Like, was that my last game as an NFL player in terms of being the starter and going out there and playing?
I've been a starter, I've been benched all kinds of different ways, but this one just really more so than any of them ... this organization and what we've been through the last year and a half, this was kind of the first place other than Buffalo where I just felt fully committed and invested and felt like it was my team. To have that, I think that's a lot of the reason why I just ... my heart was so heavy yesterday. But that's the direction that the organization and I've just got to accept it."
