The Pittsburgh Steelers are treating this offseason unlike any other. Potentially their most surprising move came last week, when they sent Minkah Fitzpatrick to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for Jalen Ramsey and Jonnu Smith. Despite adding Ramsey, former Steelers’ receiver Plaxico Burress is not a fan of letting Fitzpatrick go.
“I don’t like the Minkah Fitzpatrick trade,” Burress said on Up On Game in an episode posted Saturday. “I really don’t. I think he fits what Pittsburgh wants to do. He’s only had one interception in the last two years, but he’s a run-first safety. And you [Steelers] knew that when you brought him there. So find some pieces around him, try to keep him in-house, keep him in that secondary.”
Fitzpatrick does play the run well. He’s been one of the Steelers’ best defenders for years now, due his ability to play the run and take the ball away. However, he just wasn’t able to do the latter over the past two years, which Burress points out. And his problems against the pass were more than just an inability to take the ball away.
In 2022, nobody would have had the same criticism of Fitzpatrick. He led the NFL in interceptions that year with six, while also having 11 passes defended and allowing just an 84.1 passer rating when targeted. Yet, things have dropped off a cliff since then. Fitzpatrick has one interception and seven passes defended in the two years since. The 127.6 passer rating he allowed when targeted in 2024 was the worst of his career by a significant margin.
To his credit, Fitzpatrick was still excellent against the run. And that’s something you need to be able to defend in the AFC North. Losing that skill from Fitzpatrick leads Burress to have some worries for the Steelers.
“The Baltimore Ravens are going to run the football,” Burress said. “You’re gonna have to have some guys on that second level, to be able to defense the run if you’re playing in the AFC North. So I didn’t like the trade. I think Minkah Fitzpatrick fits what the Pittsburgh Steelers want to do defensively. They’re gonna miss him.”
Fortunately for Burress, the Steelers do have DeShon Elliott back there. Elliott made 108 combined tackles in 2024, a career high. Even more impressive, he only missed three tackles on the year, just a 2.7 percent rate. His intense run defense is a large part of the reason for his contract extension this past offseason.
Considering Elliott’s extension, and the fact that the Steelers were reportedly mulling the idea of trading Fitzpatrick for months, it starts to paint a picture. Fitzpatrick helped make a name for himself with his ability to take the ball away. When he stopped doing that, his run defense became his strongest suit. But the Steelers already had a cheaper, potentially better version of that, in Elliott.
Make no mistake, Fitzpatrick is better against the run than Ramsey. Swapping those two means the Steelers are getting worse in that regard. That said, they already have a fierce run defender at safety in Elliott. Now they have Ramsey, who can play both outside and nickel corner, and potentially safety as well. There certainly are reasons to be upset about losing Fitzpatrick. But looking at it from this lens, it makes some sense.
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