PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – From the leader of the secondary, it seems the moves of bringing in Darius Slay and bringing back Gerald Alexander as secondary coach should be major factors for the Steelers defense this year. Minkah Fitzpatrick discussed the changes and why the eighth-year safety is at voluntary workouts.
Improving goes back to the buzz phrase we heard so often from the Steelers last year about lack of communication. They’ve come up with a new term, or at least it’s what Fitzpatrick shared, ‘leave no gray’.
What he means by that is football should be black and white when it comes to execution and schematics. There should be no gray.
“It should just be, this is how we are doing it,” Fitzpatrick said Tuesday. “This is how we are going to communicate. If I give you a thumbs up, you give me a thumbs up back. If I give you a thumbs down, you give me a thumbs down back. It’s as simple as that.”
He said it’s been a big talk of offseason work. This is what we are doing and if you don’t do it, you won’t be here. Or at least you won’t be on the field.
“Really pressing down and instilling that in everybody,” Fitzpatrick said.
The 28-year-old said he obviously took a physical break early in the offseason after 2024 where he had only one pick which followed no interceptions in 10 games in 2023. The team gave him about 20-30 video clips of plays and things he poured through the last few months not only for himself to get better, but the secondary and the defense.
He’s back working with Alexander as his coach, saying he brings a lot of passion. The team also respects him and he’s willing to do what he has to enforcing the lines of communication.
“He’s a guy who’s played the game,” Fitzpatrick explained. “So he doesn’t just know the x’s and o’s of the playbook, he knows the ins and outs of the game. He knows how to put us in position to not just execute our playbook, but make plays.”
They also have 13-year pro and Super Bowl champ Darius Slay now at the starting corner opposite Joey Porter, Junior.
“A guy like that is extremely valuable,” Fitzpatrick said. “He’s covering the side of the field. When you have him in man-to-man or even in zone, you know it’s solid over there. There’s no leaning to one guy especially when you have Joey on the other side.”
“There are no real concerns out there. You know he’s going to be in the right position. You know he’s going to do his job at a high level. You can just play ball.”
You can tell Fitzpatrick, while not saying it, believes it’s a big upgrade from Donte Jackson last year. He thinks that will allow everyone to just worry about doing their jobs and not feeling like they might have to cover for someone else.
The Steelers also brought in veteran safety Juan Thornhill, who Minkah said can do a lot of the same things he does. He called him another chess piece on the board. They also brought in corner depth with Brandin Echols from the Jets and corner Cory Trice now has a full year of development after missing his rookie season due to injury.
Last year Fitzpatrick said he did what was asked, but seemed optimistic in early June that the defense will be better this season. That’s why he’s here at voluntary workouts, to make sure its improved from 2024. He even spent about 20 minutes after practice catching extra passes because he dropped an interception earlier in the workout.
“Because we are working, at the end of the day what gets you to be a better football player is playing football,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s hard to simulate that whether you are in Florida, Vegas, California. Right now we are playing football. It’s hard to do that on your own.”