If there is one silver lining to the injurious season Pittsburgh Steelers S Minkah Fitzpatrick has endured—aside from the fact that they have still won without him—it is the fact that it managed to open a door for CB Patrick Peterson.
Already 33 years old and in his 13th NFL season, Peterson, formerly an All-Pro cornerback, got his first serious look at safety during the final three weeks of the regular season. Fitzpatrick suffered a knee injury in the previous game. Then came an injury to Trenton Thompson and a suspension for Damontae Kazee. The team was forced to plug Peterson in the back end.
He did well enough to earn praise from the man he was replacing, along with Eric Rowe, who was called up from the practice squad to be the starting pair. “Pat did a lot of good things,” Fitzpatrick told reporters on Thursday via the team’s website. “It’s kind of rare for a guy to make that move late in the career, late in the season, but he did a really good job. He was communicating at a high level and was always in the right position”.
Although he had a couple of troublesome spots—he couldn’t make the tackle when TE Isaiah Likely got over the top for a 27-yard touchdown—Peterson filled in admirably as he adjusted to what may be his future role going forward.
With Fitzpatrick and Kazee back, it’s unclear precisely what the secondary will look like. Fitzpatrick will obviously be in the starting lineup, but will Kazee start next to him? Will Rowe? Will Peterson? Or will Peterson move back to cornerback?
For what it’s worth, Rowe is obviously not just a practice squad player. He is a nine-year veteran with 59 starts under his belt across 103 games played in the NFL. And he’s put up 29 tackles with a forced fumble, an interception, and two passes defensed in the three games he’s played next to Peterson.
“It definitely gave us a good look at Eric Rowe to see what he could do, and he did a great job as well,” Fitzpatrick said. Defensive coordinator Teryl Austin confirmed that Rowe would continue to have a role in the secondary, though he did not specify what that would be.
Presumably, it could be the third safety role. The Steelers employed a lot of three-safety looks when they actually had three healthy safeties. Keanu Neal was a part of that rotation but he has missed the second half of the year due to injury.
Now with Fitzpatrick, Kazee, and Rowe, they have three competent, capable safeties to move around—and Peterson makes it four. Most of them can also slide down into the box and, in Peterson’s case, can slide into outside coverage.
It’s a good problem to have trying to figure out where to put all these pieces. Of course, you ultimately want to know where they’re going, but the less obvious it is, the harder it will be on the Bills’ offense.
