Over the past 10 months, the safeties on The Associated Press All-Pro Team for the 2019 season have been traded.
On Sept. 16, 2019, the Miami Dolphins traded former Alabama All-American Minkah Fitzpatrick and a 2020 fourth-round draft choice to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a 2020 first-round pick and 2021 picks in the fifth and sixth rounds.
The trade came two games into Fitzpatrick’s second season after the Dolphins had selected him with the 11th choice in the 2018 NFL Draft. Fitzpatrick blossomed into an All-Pro with 57 tackles, five interceptions, nine pass breakups, two forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries for the Steelers. He returned one interception and one fumble for touchdowns.
On Saturday, the New York Jets traded Jamal Adams and a 2022 fourth-round draft pick to the Seattle Seahawks for safety Bradley McDougald, first-round picks in 2021 and 2022 and a third-round pick in 2021.
A Pro Bowler for the past two seasons, Adams had 75 tackles, 6.5 sacks, one interception (returned for a touchdown), seven pass breakups, two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery (returned for a touchdown) in 2019.
It seems virtually certain both safeties will show up sometime during the next three nights on NFL Network in the 2020 unveiling of “The Top 100 Players,” which is decided by the votes of NFL players.
The countdown to the No. 1 player of 2020 started on Sunday night with the presentation of the No. 71 through No. 100 players, including former Alabama standouts Josh Jacobs at No. 72 and Marlon Humphrey at No. 86.
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NFL Network will reveal the players rated 41st through 70th starting at 7 p.m. CDT Monday, the players rated 11th through 40th at 7 p.m. Tuesday and the players rated first through 10th at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
A particular tipoff that Fitzpatrick will be included among the Top 100 is NFL Films already has shared a portion of his video in promoting the countdown.
This will be Fitzpatrick’s first appearance in the “Top 100 Players.” Fitzpatrick hopes to duplicate in 2020 the Pro Bowl and All-Pro accolades that he earned in 2019.
“The way that I want to define my NFL career is by being a consistently successful guy,” Fitzpatrick said during an appearance on the “Around the 412” podcast this month. “There’s a lot of guys that can claim that they were a Pro Bowler or an All-Pro or whatnot, but there’s not a lot of guys that can say I did it every single year of my career or almost every single year of my career.
“I think those are the guys that are looked at as the Hall of Famers, those are the guys that are looked at as the all-time greats, guys that really separate themselves. There’s the good, the great and the elite, and I’m trying to put myself in the elite category. In order to do that, there’s still a whole lot of meat left on the bone for me.”
After losing their first two games of 2019, Pittsburgh posted an 8-6 record with Fitzpatrick in the lineup despite playing those 14 games without quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. But the Steelers came up short of the playoffs, although under the 2020 postseason plan, Pittsburgh would have made the AFC field.
In preparation for his first full season with the Steelers, Fitzpatrick had to spend the offseason working with his coaches and teammates in online meetings, a mandate from the NFL because of the coronavirus pandemic. Pittsburgh’s veteran players are scheduled to report for training camp on Tuesday, although COVID-19 tests will be the biggest item on the agenda.
“I’m looking forward to just putting all our hard work on display,” Fitzpatrick said about the 2020 season. “Even though we’ve been going through this craziness right now, I know myself and a lot my teammates have been pushing ourselves and challenging ourselves. … We really want to use it as an advantage for us because there’s going to be guys that come in out of shape, there’s going to be guys that come in overweight and not ready to play football, and we want to use it as an advantage and be ready the day that we come in or as close to ready as we can so that we can get right to football and put all our hard work on display.”
Fitzpatrick’s 2019 NFL honors joined the recognition he received at Alabama on his football resume.
A three-year starter for the Crimson Tide, Fitzpatrick played for Alabama’s 2015 and 2017 CFP national championship teams. A consensus All-American in 2016, Fitzpatrick was a unanimous All-American in 2017, when he won the Bednarik Award as the nation’s best defensive player and the Thorpe Award as the nation’s best defensive back.
The trade to Pittsburgh put Fitzpatrick under the guidance of Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. Fitzpatrick said he sees similarities between Tomlin and his Alabama coach, Nick Saban.
“There’s a reason why both programs are successful programs and both coaches are successful coaches,” Fitzpatrick said. “I would say the main thing is the way that both of them prepare for the game.
“I’ve got opportunities to sit in the actual coaches meeting before with coach Saban as he’s breaking down film and going through stuff as I was learning a new position, so I got to see the way that he broke the game down and the way that he thought about the game. I’ve also had the same opportunity with coach Tomlin. He has meetings with three or four guys in the room, and he has his notebook out, and he’s just checking off a whole bunch of different stuff: Hey, make sure you’re looking for this. He has numbers on the board, stats on the board from the offense that we’re going against -- Hey, second-down-and-long, second-down-and-7 is this, is that – and is just really detailed when it comes to the game. I think that’s definitely something that they have in common and a big part of why they’re successful.”
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @AMarkG1.
July 28, 2020 at 05:55AM
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