Minkah Fitzpatrick downplays getting chance to play against his former team

Minkah Fitzpatrick insists there is no extra motivation. No incentive to hand another loss to a team that has strung up six in a row to start this season. No reason to rip the organization he so badly wanted to leave in September.

When the Pittsburgh Steelers face the Miami Dolphins on Monday night, it will be “another game, another team from a different city, a different state.”

Those are the words Fitzpatrick, the Steelers’ 22-year-old safety, used Wednesday morning to describe what it will be like facing the Dolphins six weeks to the day after he was shipped to Pittsburgh in exchange for a 2020 first-round draft pick.

“I have to go out there, do my job, prepare like I usually do and play good ball,” Fitzpatrick said. “That’s it.”

Fitzpatrick asked to be traded a few days after the Dolphins were overwhelmed 59-10 by the Baltimore Ravens in the season opener, which was Brian Flores’ debut as Miami’s coach. The Dolphins already had shifted into rebuilding mode before the season started by trading away talented young players Laremy Tunsil and Kenny Stills.

Three days after the Dolphins granted Fitzpatrick permission to seek a trade, he was sent to the Steelers, who had an immediate need at free safety when Sean Davis was placed on injured reserve with a shoulder injury.

Fitzpatrick said it wasn’t difficult leaving his Dolphins teammates behind for a fresh start elsewhere.

“It’s a business decision,” Fitzpatrick said. “There are other people who made business decisions prior to mine, and I still communicate with players that are on the team. I still talk to them. I’m close with a lot of players on the team and forged relationships with them.

“I don’t think they are going to unfriend me because I play for a different team.”

Fitzpatrick made an impact in his first game with the Steelers with an interception and forced fumble against San Francisco. In four games, he has 21 tackles and three passes defensed, and the Steelers have forced 13 turnovers since his arrival.

“He’s a leader out there,” strong safety Terrell Edmunds said. “He’s a guy who is smart. He’s easy to play with, and he can play different positions so we can disguise stuff well and we can be interchangeable.”

Fitzpatrick’s versatility is what enticed the Steelers to acquire him, but he was perhaps a jack-of-too-many-trades with the Dolphins. After excelling as a slot cornerback as a rookie — he was the No. 11 overall player selected — Fitzpatrick said Flores’ staff asked him to learn six positions in training camp.

With the Steelers, Fitzpatrick has settled in at free safety, although coach Mike Tomlin has talked about a “global” expansion of that role as Fitzpatrick learns the Steelers defense. Only in discussing his usage in the Steelers system did Fitzpatrick take a veiled shot at the Dolphins.

“We’re still keeping it simple,” he said. “Doing what we do, doing it well, doing it fast and executing. That’s what I like about here: We run what we run, and we run it well. We don’t try to do too much and change it up week to week. We try to go out and execute what were are used to and play ball.”

Since the trade, Fitzpatrick has studied other positions on the Steelers defense to gain a better understanding of the team’s concepts and how free safety fits into the scheme.

“They didn’t throw a whole lot on my plate role-wise, but I’m still trying to understand the defense,” he said. “That’s how you learn a defense. You don’t just learn a position. You’ve got to learn what is gong on all around you, especially at safety or nickel.

“The way the game is played, you have to know what is going on around you. As soon as I got here, I had to learn different fronts that we run and what the linebackers do and what the safeties do. From the jump, that’s why I think I’ve been learning so fast. I’m not trying to focus on one position. I focus on the overall concept and scheme.”

While Fitzpatrick maintains the Dolphins are merely the next opponent on the schedule, Edmunds doesn’t believe that is an entirely accurate portrayal of how his teammate views the game Monday night.

“It probably is just another game, but at the same time, you know he has that urge that he has to make a play against his teammates, against his old coach,” Edmunds said. “We’ve got full confidence that he is going to make those plays.”