This year has been a curious case for former All-Pro S Minkah Fitzpatrick. He hasn’t played poorly by any means, but the splash has been missing. In fact, it’s been 22 games since he last created a turnover after being a frequent creator of splash plays earlier in his career.
Is it a matter of how well he’s playing? Or is it just the fact that he’s at deep safety, and teams are avoiding route concepts that put him in play as much?
“Certainly, we’re interested in taking the ball away, and he’s a key component of that,” Tomlin said via The Mike Tomlin Show on the team website. “But sometimes you’re not afforded an opportunity. People have other agendas, and so it’s probably a little bit of both.”
This has more or less been the explanation given by everyone when discussing Fitzpatrick’s lack of splash. They talked about wanting to get him back to playing “Minkah ball” this year. That was a key story before the season in training camp, and it obviously hasn’t paid off.
Until the bye week, he played almost exclusively at free safety. They have made an effort to move him around since then, with 45 of his 87 snaps in the box and 16 of his 26 in the slot coming over the last three games.
That has gotten him around the ball a bit more, but it hasn’t necessarily been a good change. Pro Football Focus has charted him for allowing eight receptions on nine targets over that time, and his grades have fallen off some.
Our Alex Kozora did a deep dive into Fitzpatrick’s lack of splash plays, offering multiple angles of what is going wrong.
Fitzpatrick has two more seasons on his contract, and he will have cap hits of over $20 million in each of them. That kind of money is reserved for players who consistently create a splash.
Will things turn around, or is this the new normal for the star safety?
Fitzpatrick’s last interception returned for a touchdown was against Joe Burrow in Week 1 of the 2022 season. Could this be the week Fitzpatrick breaks the slump, and will that get the ball rolling for more “Minkah ball” in Pittsburgh?
