“I think that dudes just think that just because they’re wearing the Black and Gold that they’re gonna win games, and I think that we need to check that mentality and make people realize that they gotta earn that mentality”.
That is, in part, what Pittsburgh Steelers S Minkah Fitzpatrick said of his teammates to ESPN in the wake of their 21-18 loss to the New England Patriots. One might take it as coming in the heat of the moment, but he stood by his thoughts following Wednesday’s practice, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Joe Rutter.
“I think my statements after the game were something you need to see over the long haul”, he is quoted as saying. “It’s not something you can change in a day or two”. In other words, he is in wait-and-see mode when it comes to passing judgement on his peers.
To a man, everybody in the locker room acknowledges that Fitzpatrick is one of the players who always walks the walk. He puts in all of the work you would expect a great player to and then some and does his part in trying to hold players accountable.
There’s only so much one person can do, however, and perhaps he felt that speaking out in a public forum in the manner he did was a sort of last resort to get his message across. “We’ll see as we finish this stretch of games”, he said, regarding whether anything has changed from the entitled attitudes he sensed before.
As it turns out, wearing certain colors doesn’t entitle you to wins, as the Steelers found out the hard way last week. They lost to a pair of teams in a five-day span that entered the game eight games below the .500 mark, a first in NFL history for a team above .500 at the time.
Their next two games as they teeter on the brink of irrelevance are against teams that are their peers in terms of vying for postseason contention. Both the Indianapolis Colts and the Cincinnati Bengals are 7-6 heading into Week 15, as is Pittsburgh.
They are just three of six teams in the AFC trapped in that glut, just a smidge above mediocrity. Some will exit the week 8-6, others 7-7, and with just three games to go on the other side of things, that could prove a big difference.
It will take every effort from everybody on board to stay focused and to provide the level of commitment to winning that is required from a battered roster. Nobody is close to full capacity right now—like the Steelers, for example, both the Colts and Bengals are stuck playing a backup quarterback as well.
But while the Steelers have been finding ways to lose, others have been winning in spite of their circumstances. If that continues, then it will be a genuine concern about the state of the locker room. Fitzpatrick is as eager as any of us to find out.
