Steelers News: Minkah Fitzpatrick ready for a bigger role in 2020

It has been a one-of-a-kind offseason for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2020. Unable to attend most player pro days and participating in the NFL’s first virtual draft, the Steelers keep pushing forward toward a return to football activities. Just because the Steelers are unable to hold their typical OTA’s doesn’t mean we stop providing you with features, commentary and opinions to tide you over throughout the offseason!

Today in the black-and-gold links article we take a look at MInkah Fitzpatrick’s hopes for 2020 with the Steelers after jumping on the moving train in 2019.

Let’s get to the news:

• Minkah Fitzpatrick has high hopes at the safety position in 2020

Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick willing to take on bigger role in Steelers defense

By: Joe Rutter, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

In 14 games with the Pittsburgh Steelers last season, Minkah Fitzpatrick tied for the team lead with five interceptions, was selected to the Pro Bowl and became the team’s first defensive back to be named first-team All-Pro since Troy Polamalu in 2011.

As an encore, Fitzpatrick would like to bring more to the Steelers defense in 2020, his first full season with the team that acquired him at the expense of a first-round draft pick.

He believes it is possible as long as the Steelers coaching staff, opposing quarterbacks and the up-in-the-air schedule allow him to do it.

After playing mostly free safety after his acquisition from the Miami Dolphins, Fitzpatrick is open to filling other roles on the defense, whether lining up in the box, playing cornerback in slot or being given the freedom to roam Polamalu enjoyed a decade earlier.

He also is content trying to improve at a singular position as he enters his third NFL season.

“If the coaches want me to move around, I’ll move around,” Fitzpatrick said Tuesday on a video conference call. “If they don’t, then I don’t need to. I wouldn’t say it’s a goal. If they need me to move around, I’ll learn the system and get it down to a ‘T’ just in case I have to or if they ask me to move.”

To read the full article, click HERE (Free)

• Mike Tomlin discusses some of his thoughts on the Rooney Rule

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin likes idea of incentivizing Rooney Rule

By: Brooke Pryor, ESPN

Mike Tomlin likes the discussion around an incentivized minority hiring process in the NFL.

On “Coffee with Cal,” hosted by Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari, on Monday morning, the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach said he likes the idea of a change to the Rooney Rule that rewards teams for hiring minority candidates.

“We’ve always taken it from the approach of, punitive if you don’t interview minority candidates or things of that nature,” said Tomlin, who is one of four minority head coaches in the NFL. “I just like the different approach in terms of spinning it 180 and talking about maybe incentivizing those that develop the talent and those that hire the talent.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean Tomlin is in favor of all the incentives recently discussed. NFL.com and ESPN reported earlier this month that owners were considering a proposal that would have improved teams’ third-round draft picks by 6 or 10 spots if they hired a minority candidate for vacant GM or head-coaching openings, along with other compensation for hiring minority candidates for roles like quarterbacks coach.

Those resolutions, though, were tabled during the a conference call last week that replaced the league’s annual May owners meetings.

To read the full article, click HERE (Free)

• Do Las Vegas oddmakers give Mike Tomlin much of a chance to be coach of the year?

Steelers’ Mike Tomlin right in the middle of betting odds for NFL Coach of the Year

By: Chris Adamski, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Willing to bet Mike Tomlin as an NFL Coach of the Year candidate?

You can find yourself some good odds, but not as long or as short as most of the rest of the league’s coaches.

BetOnline released its betting lines for each of the league’s 32 coaches to be named AP Coach of the Year for the 2020 season. Tomlin was listed exactly in the middle – in a three-way tie for 15th – with the Minnesota Vikings’ Mike Zimmer and the Seattle Seahawks’ Pete Carroll at 28-1.

The co-favorites, per BetOnline.ag, both have ties to Tom Brady: his former coach, Bill Belichick, and new coach, Bruce Arians, are at 12-1. After 20 seasons with Belichick and the New England Patriots, Brady signed with Arians’ Tampa Bay Buccaneers in March.

To read the full article, click HERE (Free)

• BTSC articles you may have missed

A missing ingredient which Ben Roethlisberger brings to the kitchen

Taking a peek at the Steelers current salary cap status

Looking at the game some claim shows Minkah Fitzpatrick is not elite

A pool of unemployed quarterbacks is good news for the Steelers

Who is on the Steelers All-Millennium team on defense?

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