Minkah Fitzpatrick was the first of the Miami Dolphins players to make a “business decision” and publicly ask to be traded from the franchise that drafted him with their No. 1 pick just a year earlier.
None of the Dolphins players who will be at Heinz Field on Monday will have any kind of retribution on their mind when they face their former teammate for the first time since he was traded to the Steelers five weeks ago. In fact, after the Dolphins’ 0-6 start, they likely are envious of him and will want to congratulate him for escaping.
Fitzpatrick is glad he did. And so are the Steelers, who traded their No. 1 pick in next year’s draft to get him.
“It’s a business decision,” Fitzpatrick said. “Other people made business decisions prior to mine. I still communicate with players on the team. I grew close with a lot of players on the team, formed relationships with them. I don’t think it’s going to be unfriendly because I’m playing with a different team.”
Fitzpatrick has made a fast transition at free safety with the Steelers. He intercepted a pass and forced a fumble in his first 15 minutes with his new team and is already so comfortable in the defense he is calling signals and making checks in the secondary.
There is still the occasional gaffe, like when Los Angeles Chargers tight end Hunter Henry caught a touchdown in the back of the end zone in the most recent game when Fitzpatrick had his signals mixed.
But his understanding of the defense in general and his role in particular is one of the reasons the Steelers are glad they made the business decision they did — not an easy one, given their past reluctance to trade future No. 1 picks — to acquire Fitzpatrick.
“I’ve been doing that since the moment I got here,” Fitzpatrick said. “They didn’t throw a whole lot on my plate, role-wise. But I still try to understand the defense. That’s how you learn a defense. You don’t just learn one position. You got to learn what’s going on all around you, especially that safety or nickel.
“The way the game is played, you have to know what’s going on. If you want to make plays and play very well, you have to know what’s going on around you.”
That type of preparation and understanding has astounded some of his teammates, given the short amount of time he has been with the team.
“Me, I didn’t really start learning the defense until my fifth year where I got the complete concept,” said cornerback Joe Haden, who played his first seven seasons with the Cleveland Browns before coming to the Steelers in 2017. “What he is learning is the why — not just knowing what you’re doing but why you’re doing it. I’m very happy he’s on the team just because he gets it.”
Coach Mike Tomlin said on Tuesday he used the bye week to work with some of the team’s “developing” players, including Fitzpatrick. He said it allowed Fitzpatrick to take a step back from his quick introduction to the Steelers to “teach him some more global things.”
While Fitzpatrick smiled and confessed to not knowing what that meant, Tomlin said the work enabled his young safety “to look at things outside his helmet and how he can be a part of that process, from detailing things out over the course of the field, but also in terms of pre-snap disguises and things of that nature.”
Fitzpatrick’s versatility to play deep safety or in the slot is one of the reasons the Steelers were attracted to him. But Tomlin said he didn’t want to use Fitzpatrick in a number of different areas until he was comfortable with the defense. That time could be fast approaching.
“We’re still keeping it simple, doing what we do, doing it well, doing it fast and executing,” Fitzpatrick said. “That’s the thing I like about here — we run what we run and we run it well. We don’t try to do too much, we don’t try to change it up too much week to week. We just go out there and execute what we’re used to.”
Even though he is only 22, Fitzpatrick prepares and plays with the demeanor of a veteran. He is all business on the field and is not given to some of the celebrations that occur after a big play. The Steelers believe in a short amount of time he will become one of the leaders of the defense, despite his tender age.
“I feel about Minkah the same way I feel about T.J. Watt — they’re two dudes mature beyond their years that take the game very seriously,” Haden said. “They’re going to be very good for a very long time because it means a lot to them. They practice hard, they take good notes. Football is a very high priority with them.”
Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac.
First Published: October 23, 2019, 10:09 p.m.
