{"id":31790,"date":"2025-07-02T05:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/31790\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T05:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:35:09","slug":"the-minkah-fitzpatrick-trade-may-have-worked-out-perfectly-for-pittsburgh-says-florio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/31790\/","title":{"rendered":"The Minkah Fitzpatrick Trade ‘May Have Worked Out Perfectly’ For Pittsburgh, Says Florio"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers made a massive trade on Monday, sending Minkah Fitzpatrick to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for Jalen Ramsey and Jonnu Smith. So far, the reviews have been all over the place<\/a>. While we won\u2019t know the winner of the trade until everyone takes the field, Mike Florio seems to think the Steelers are getting the better end of the deal. He also believes something was off between Fitzpatrick and the Steelers last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw somebody arguing yesterday that the Dolphins got the better end of the deal, because they got Minkah Fitzpatrick,\u201d Florio said on Pro Football Talk<\/a> on Tuesday. \u201cLook, something was off with the Steelers and Minkah Fitzpatrick last year. If you pay attention to the Steelers, you know that there was something that wasn\u2019t right. And this may have worked out perfectly for the Steelers. Just wait \u2019til the right moment\u2026 The Steelers grab both of them [Ramsey and Smith], and unload a guy [Fitzpatrick] that maybe the window had closed on his overall effectiveness there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the stability he\u2019s provided to the Steelers\u2019 defense over the years, losing Fitzpatrick is a tough pill to swallow. You don\u2019t have to look further than Cam Heyward<\/a> to realize that. However, the Steelers do have their reasons for doing so.<\/p>\n

Minkah Fitzpatrick will turn 29 during the upcoming season, so it\u2019s not as if he\u2019s super old. However, his game has taken a step back over the last two years. After making turnovers a hallmark of his game, Fitzpatrick had no interceptions in 2023 and just one in 2024. He was also part of a defense that struggled with miscommunications during the final stretch of the 2024 season. While he wasn\u2019t certain, Steelers insider Ray Fittipaldo did point to those communication issues<\/a> as a possible reason for Fitzpatrick being moved.<\/p>\n

Whether he was the reason for those problems or not, his pass defense was a problem. Minkah Fitzpatrick allowed completions on 78.8-percent of the balls thrown his way. He also gave up a 127.6 passer rating when targeted. Each of those is a career-worst mark for Fitzpatrick, by a decent margin. As stout as he is against the run, he wasn\u2019t doing much against the pass, and wasn\u2019t creating turnovers either. That, plus the fact that DeShon Elliott had such a good season last year<\/a>, made him more expendable.<\/p>\n

Whether the Steelers win this trade or not remains to be seen. But it does make some sense. In Ramsey, they get a much more versatile defender, and Jonnu Smith is just as versatile<\/a> on the offensive side of the ball. The Steelers have a history of moving on from players at the right time. We\u2019ll see if Fitzpatrick ends up being another example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers made a massive trade on Monday, sending Minkah Fitzpatrick to the Miami Dolphins in exchange…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[14007,24896,9003,26829,24897,1232,26830,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-31790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-jalen-ramsey","9":"tag-jonnu-smith","10":"tag-miami-dolphins","11":"tag-mike-florio","12":"tag-minkah-fitzpatrick","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-pro-football-talk","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114782019898035333","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}