Steelers deal first-round pick for Dolphins’ DB Minkah Fitzpatrick

Minkah Fitzpatrick in 2018

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Minkah Fitzpatrick in 2018

The Pittsburgh Steelers, after just losing their starting quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, on Monday for the season, have traded away next year’s first-round pick to a struggling Dolphins team. The Steelers will receive the No. 11 overall pick of last year’s draft, Minkah Fitzpatrick.

Miami will now have the 21st-round picks in next year’s draft and undoubtedly will tank for the first overall pick.

The Steelers, on the other hand, aren’t giving up on their season. According to CBS Sports, Minkah Fitzpatrick, during a one-on-one interview with Steelers.com’s Missi Matthews, discussed an array of topics that included how he found out that he was traded to Pittsburgh.

“Late [Monday] night, I got a phone call from Chris Grier, the GM over at Dolphins,” Fitzpatrick said. “We had a little conversation, and at the end of it, he told me they made the deal and that I was going be headed to Pittsburgh.”

This is a big move for the Steelers after battling safety troubles these past few games with former first-round pick, Terrell Edmunds.

Head coach Mike Tomlin said he did a lot of studying on Minkah Fitzpatrick before the 2018 NFL Draft.

“We really studied Minkah closely in the process leading up to the draft,” said Tomlin. “It was no secret that we were in the market for a high-end safety, in fact we ended up drafting Edmunds later in the round. We did our due diligence, we looked at Minkah. We knew it was somewhat of a pipe dream because of his global position in the draft.” (Teresa Varley, Steelers.com).

Fitzpatrick will join a now very young Steelers team. The Steelers will look to put Minkah to good use this week against a tough 2-0 San Francisco 49ers team.