Rivera: Fitzpatrick is Washington's QB1 but must compete for job

Ryan Fitzpatrick is the Washington Football Team's top quarterback right now, but Ron Rivera won't simply hand the starting job to the veteran.

"Last year, one of the mistakes I made, obviously, was I didn't have the true competition," the head coach said Thursday, according to Nick Shook of NFL.com. "I felt going in, the idea was to give Dwayne (Haskins) as many reps as possible to get him ready to play.

"This time, I know who we have as the starter, but he's going to go in and compete with everybody else. I want to play the guy that's going to give us the best opportunity to win, the best opportunity to develop and grow as a football team."

In addition to signing Fitzpatrick in free agency, the NFC East club re-signed Taylor Heinicke to a two-year deal following the quarterback's start against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild-card round.

Washington could also add a quarterback through the draft, though the top five prospects will likely be gone by the time Rivera's team picks at 19th overall.

"We're going to react to what's going to happen in front of us," Rivera said. "Picking where we're picking, a lot of things can happen. We have targets, we have ideas, we have guys that we like. But that always changes just because of the fact that everybody has a choice, and so you just never know what's going to happen at that point."

Fitzpatrick started seven games - winning four - and appeared in another two for the Miami Dolphins last season. He threw for 2,091 yards and 13 touchdowns against eight interceptions and finished fifth in ESPN's QBR metric.

Meanwhile, Heinicke impressed after being forced to start in place of an injured Alex Smith in the postseason loss to Tampa Bay, throwing for 306 yards and one score against one interception.