The Pittsburgh Steelers currently have two members of their starting secondary who have a very realistic chance of winding up in the Hall of Fame eventually, based on what they have already done in their NFL careers. Free safety Minkah Fitzpatrick is already a three-time first-team All-Pro just five years into his career, four with Pittsburgh.
And yet eight-time Pro Bowl cornerback Patrick Peterson, seven years his senior, can’t help but take stock of what it means to be playing in the same backfield together, the cherry on the top of a remarkable history of safety partnerships.
“It’s a blessing and an honor to be with Minkah”, he told Amanda Godsey after practice yesterday in an exclusive interview. “A cool thing about my career [is] I had an opportunity to play with some great safeties. Adrian Wilson, Harrison Smith, Tyrann Mathieu, Budda Baker, and now Minkah is added to the list. I don’t take these opportunities for granted at all”.
Peterson has previously talked about how Wilson in particular was his first and greatest mentor in the NFL, a0 five-time Pro Bowler, four-time All-Pro who was nearing the end of his career when the cornerback was drafted fifth overall out of LSU in 2011.
The Cardinals drafted Mathieu the year after Wilson retired, and Peterson played with him for the next five years. He also spent four years with Baker in Arizona before moving on to the Minnesota Vikings, where he worked for the past two seasons with Smith.
It’s a remarkable run of back-end defenders, among whom are 19 Pro Bowls and 11 All-Pro selections. Now with Fitzpatrick adding another three of each—and counting, he gets a fresh crack at sharing trade secrets with one of the best.
“When you have the opportunity to play with other great players, you not only want to soak up the time that you have together but you also want to pick his brain a little bit”, he said. “Obviously we play two different positions, but you want to understand how he’s training, what he’s doing to get his body right, how he sees certain plays and things like that”.
“It’s quite a blessing to be here with Minkah, finally”, he reiterated, noting that they have the same agent. “I had the opportunity to work him out pre-draft as he was going to [the NFL Scouting Combine], so we’ve had a long relationship prior to being teammates here in Pittsburgh”.
That was back in 2018 when Fitzpatrick came out of Alabama as a first-round pick himself. Peterson has also previously talked about how there was a possibility of himself signing with the Steelers as a free agent last year that didn’t come to fruition, so this is sort of a union long delayed.
