Minkah Fitzpatrick is aware of the narrative that he doesn’t make many splash plays anymore, let alone create turnovers, so the Pittsburgh Steelers’ three-time All-Pro free safety must be having a down season.
On a defense that loves to talk about its turnover culture and awards T-shirts for takeaways, Fitzpatrick remains shirtless. He hasn’t recorded an interception in a two-season stretch of 23 games, and his only forced fumble this season, at Cleveland, was recovered by the Browns.
Much of the criticism is aimed at how Fitzpatrick’s numbers aren’t worthy of the four-year contract that pays him an annual average value of $18.4 million, third-highest among NFL safeties. The Steelers are quick to defend Fitzpatrick’s play because of how he’s accepted the thankless task of going from playmaker to protector by serving as both a downfield deterrent and their last line of defense.
“It’s not a splashy or fancy part of the game but it’s a part of the game that matters,” Fitzpatrick told TribLive. “When we eliminate big plays and there’s big runs that break out and you minimize them and don’t let them go for 40, then it’s a crucial part of the game. It’s not my favorite thing in the world, but it’s what they’re asking me to do, and I’m going to do it at a high level.”
Steelers coaches contend that deploying Fitzpatrick almost exclusively at free safety takes away the middle of the field and limits the number of big passing plays by making quarterbacks think twice about testing him.
Fitzpatrick has shown a propensity for making touchdown-saving plays, whether it was deflecting Justin Herbert’s Hail Mary pass in the end zone at the end of the first half in a 20-10 win over the Los Angeles Chargers or his shoestring stop on a breakaway run by Derrick Henry in an 18-16 win over the Baltimore Ravens. Per Pro Football Reference, Fitzpatrick has only five missed tackles this season, and his 2.9% missed-tackle percentage is the lowest of his career.
“He does so much for us,” Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said. “I know sometimes we all want splash, we all like splash. But a lot of the things that he does allow us to line up and play another play and have an opportunity to stop people. That’s immense, in terms of us keeping people out of the end zone and doing different things. We love the splash, but he really does make us all better all-around in the back.”
Steelers teammates contend that Fitzpatrick is playing at a Pro Bowl level, even if the statistics indicate otherwise. Per Pro Football Focus, he ranks 26th in solo tackles (50), 22nd in assists (15), 33rd in receptions allowed (19) and 40th in yards per reception (13.3). PFF gives Fitzpatrick a 64.9 grade, which ranks 24th among safeties and serves as a significant drop from his 82.4 grade that ranked second in 2022.
“Statistics is surface-level thinking. You’ve just got to know and understand that anytime a great player like him is being left out of the statistics talk, you’ve got to go deeper than the surface,” said Steelers cornerback Donte Jackson, who has a team-best five interceptions. “When you talk about a guy like Minkah, you really have to sit down and watch his impact and not just pull up stats and think you have a guy like him figured out. You leave that type of thought to the casuals. You understand his impact is definitely needed out there for us. He has a lot to do with the success we have as a defense, as a secondary.”
If Fitzpatrick’s numbers are down, it’s in part because of how the Steelers are using him. Of his 734 defensive snaps, 80% are at free safety and only 13.2% are in the box – half as much as last season – with a career-low 33 snaps in the slot and only 12 at corner. That puts him in position to make fewer plays on passes.
When asked about Fitzpatrick’s play, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin alluded to how they avoided throwing over the middle of the field in the season opener at Atlanta because of Falcons free safety Jesse Bates III. Tomlin warned that opponents “better be cognizant of the personnel and unique skill sets” of Fitzpatrick and “show respect to those talents by being thoughtful about how you attack him.”
“He’s doing a great job, to be quite honest with you,” Tomlin said. “I think the turnovers will come. Oftentimes, when you play on the back end, you’re defined by takeaways, just like when you play up front, you’re defined by sacks. But it’s not always the storyteller, but those of us that are in this business, we realize – to a degree – that you’re measured by it.”
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Fitzpatrick has a fan in former NFL defensive player of the year Luke Kuechly, as the former Carolina Panthers linebacker raved about him on the Up & Adams Show with Kay Adams this week.
“I think Minkah is a stud. I really like him,” Kuechly said. “I don’t think he gets enough credit. I think you talk about a guy that’s smart, and intelligent, and gets football.”
For Steelers nickel back Cameron Sutton, Fitzpatrick’s value should be measured as much for his ability to eliminate problems before they happen as they are by the plays he makes.
“It’s not about the whistle in front of him sometimes; it’s what he’s stopping from happening,” Sutton said. “With his presence and his resume back there alone, that scares a lot of teams from taking those chances and taking those 50-50 balls or shots down the field sometimes. A lot of teams are like, why even give him the opportunity? We’ve seen this episode over and over and over. We know the outcome.”
The 6-foot-1, 207-pound Fitzpatrick earned a reputation as a ballhawk through his first five NFL seasons, when he had 19 interceptions, five fumble recoveries and four forced fumbles. But he hasn’t had a fumble recovery since a 19-13 win over Tennessee on Dec. 19, 2021 or picked off a pass since New Year’s Day 2023. That came against the Baltimore Ravens in the penultimate game of the 2022 season, when he tied for the NFL lead with a career-best six interceptions.
That didn’t stop Steelers strong safety Damontae Kazee from saying Fitzpatrick is doing “an excellent job.”
“I wish the turnovers could be easy but they’re throwing away from him, so you just look at it like that,” Kazee said. “It’s awful hard to get turnovers when they ain’t throwing it over the middle.”
Kazee calls Fitzpatrick the “quarterback of the defense” because of his cerebral approach to studying film – often alone – and sharing details of the game plan to his teammates so they stay on the same page.
NFL Films captured Fitzpatrick sitting in on a defensive coaches’ meeting in the first episode of “Hard Knocks: In Season with the AFC North.” Fitzpatrick said the sessions are a chance for him to confirm what he sees on the field and to spread Tomlin’s message in detail to his teammates. Austin said it allows coaches to bounce ideas off Fitzpatrick for a player’s point of view before implementing them in practice.
“That’s true. I think it’s beneficial because you’re saving a day of practice. Sometimes, the coaches might like something the players don’t feel comfortable with,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ve been in this system for a minute so I kind of know who likes what and who doesn’t. When they put something across the board that (players) might not like, that doesn’t suit their playing style well, Coach T makes me comfortable with saying, ‘I don’t know about that.’ Most of the time he’s like, ‘We’re going to try it anyway’ but it’s still good to have that voice.”
It’s a voice that commands respect in the secondary, because of Fitzpatrick’s approach to studying game-like situations to stay a step ahead. That provides the Steelers with a sense of security, knowing that Fitzpatrick has everything covered on the back end.
“His presence alone, his physicality – getting to the ball, how he flies around, how he communicates – are the things that are not necessarily highlighted in the public’s eyes,” Sutton said. “Nobody talks about being a great communicator on the field. Nobody talks about a guy who consistently does his job. You don’t see a lot of mental lapses out there. He’s a guy who’s accountable, not just to himself but to the guys around him, being where he needs to be – things that don’t go down on the stat sheet as a tackle or an interception or even as a big hit.
“You’re not going to remember it but from the morale of a team and a brother standpoint, I know he’s truly got my back, that he has all of our backs out there on the field and we can count on him. There’s never any doubt to Mink’s game or his preparation because we know the ultimate competitor that he is, the ultimate player and person that he is. That gives us more comfortability. You’re not playing on eggshells or on your heels out there. He’s the last line of defense. You take that with pride. If it gets behind him, there’s nothing back there but a guy raising his arms signaling touchdown. That’s the ultimate responsibility.”