The Steelers are making a big, but risky, bet on their future with the Minkah Fitzpatrick trade

By trading next year’s first-round pick to Miami for ascendant safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, the Steelers are saying one of two things. Either:

1. They’re entirely confident Ben Roethlisberger can return to full strength or something comparable in 2020 and 2021, when he’ll be 38 and 39 years old, or
2. They’re entirely confident in Mason Rudolph, 2019’s backup-turned-starter thanks to Roethlisberger’s torn UCL.

Pittsburgh sold off its opportunity to draft a franchise quarterback in a passer-rich 2020 NFL Draft in exchange for the chance to cultivate Fitzpatrick into its next great center fielder. Bringing in a high-ceiling second-year safety isn’t entirely a win-now move, but it does address the team’s primary weakness through an 0-2 start. It also tips the Steelers’ hand as to its expectations for the future. So long, theoretical top-five rookie quarterback pick; hello, rebuilt Steel Curtain defense.

The question now is whether Rudolph and an injured/aging Roethlisberger can do enough with a depleted offense to make this move work. If not, passing up a potential franchise cornerstone for the second straight year could be the mistake that keeps Pittsburgh in football purgatory.

In a vacuum, the move makes sense. The Pittsburgh offense has been dealt blow after blow the past two seasons. Contributors like Le’Veon Bell, Antonio Brown, and Jesse James departed. Roethlisberger is done for the season and starting tailback James Conner left Week 2’s loss to the Seahawks due to injury, though he’s slated to return to the lineup in Week 3. Contingency plans like Donte Moncrief (three catches on 11 targets) and James Washington (four on nine) have failed to pay off so far.

That’s going to make it incredibly difficult for an inexperienced backup quarterback like Rudolph to win a shootout, so general manager Kevin Colbert is trying to create an environment where he doesn’t have to. The Steelers’ passing defense has been its shortcoming in 2019, giving up 8.3 net yards per attempt — the 28th best mark in the league. Part of that is due to the fact they’ve faced a pair of MVP candidates early on in Tom Brady and Russell Wilson, but plenty of good passers still loom on their schedule.

Freeing Fitzpatrick from the Dolphins, who currently have all the structural soundness of a gingerbread house, will bring some much-needed stability to his budding career, and it should make Pittsburgh better. The problem is this team has failed to be more than the sum of its parts in recent years. The Steelers have talent at all three levels and mostly look like they should field an upper-tier defense. Instead, they’ve cracked the top 10 in yards given up per play only once since 2013.

This trade was made in the hopes Fitzpatrick can be the unifying force that brings them all together. He might be — and we’ll get to that later — but the most important part of the Pittsburgh lineup right now remains Rudolph. If he can’t jump-start the offense, then the Steelers could go from sending a mid-round pick for their starting safety — one who’ll need a costly extension in 2021 should he live up to expectations — to giving up a top-five pick.

The second-year quarterback has shown signs of growth in 2019. After serving as the team’s third-string passer last fall, he showed enough through the preseason to convince Colbert to trade Joshua Dobbs to the Jaguars in September.

Rudolph paid off that faith with an encouraging, if not spectacular, performance in his first ever regular season action last Sunday. He completed 12 of his 19 passes for 112 yards, a pair of touchdowns, and one interception in a 28-26 loss. He led Pittsburgh on three scoring drives and would have had the chance for a fourth had the defense been able to get the ball back after kicking off to the Seahawks with 5:34 remaining in the game.

But that came against a Seahawks secondary that allowed Andy Dalton to lead the league in passing yards just a week before. Rudolph brings more questions than answers to the Pittsburgh offense, but the recent success of Big 12 air raid-style passers suggests he could live up to expectations in the Steel City.

Of course, the team’s most recent Big 12 QB draftee before Rudolph turned out to be XFL star Landry Jones. The Steelers are hopeful their new project from an Oklahoma institution of higher education will turn out better than the last.

If he can’t, there’s always next year. And Fitzpatrick’s presence could make it easier for a 38-year-old Ben Roethlisberger to bring Pittsburgh back to relevance in 2020.

Roethlisberger’s run through the late-2010s has been dotted with subtle and not-so-subtle hints about a potential retirement. His statement after hearing he’d miss the rest of the season strongly indicates he’ll be back next fall.

The Steelers appear to have taken that statement to heart. They passed up the opportunity to draft Lamar Jackson in 2018, opting for defensive support in T.J. Watt and later landing on Rudolph late in the third round as a developmental “maybe” behind their star quarterback.

The Fitzpatrick trade is a similar decision. This time, however, instead of giving up a late first-rounder, the pick being burned to boost the defense could wind up landing in the top 10.

Fitzpatrick could be great. He just isn’t there yet. The former Alabama All-American and 11th pick of the 2018 NFL Draft got moved all over the Miami defense, playing at least 90 snaps at box safety, slot corner, outside corner and free safety as a rookie, per Pro Football Focus. He was most effective isolated from the sideline, where he earned high marks in slot coverage while struggling in more traditional cornerback roles.

The Dolphins wanted him to be their Swiss Army knife in a hole-filled secondary; the kind of player who could team with Xavien Howard to take on any job his coaches asked of him. Fitzpatrick wasn’t happy with the frequent switchups, which precluded his trade request in Miami. He’ll take on a more defined role in Pittsburgh, where Joe Haden and Steven Nelson will handle outside duties at corner. Fitzpatrick is slated to pair with fellow 2018 first-rounder Terrell Edmunds in the team’s top-line safety rotation.

Edmunds improved throughout his rookie season at strong safety, and this trade sets him in place as the anchor that lets Fitzpatrick drift around the defensive backfield without coming unmoored. Limiting his focus and playing to his strengths should allow Fitzpatrick to flourish, especially with a talented, if disorganized, roster around him.

It’s not hard to see what the Steelers are going for here. Fitzpatrick’s arrival gives them a long list of young, athletic talent (Edmunds, Bud Dupree, Watt, Devin Bush, et al) behind the defensive line. But they’re older at cornerback, so luring a versatile safety who can add double-team help in a pinch is especially useful. If Haden and Nelson can keep from giving up the sideline, Fitzpatrick will be there to help — and he’ll have to with the suddenly explosive Browns, Ravens, and huh, even the Bengals (12 yards per catch) residing in the AFC North.

That’s not all he’ll bring to the table. If Pittsburgh needs someone to line up against top slot receivers like Jarvis Landry, Tyler Boyd, Keenan Allen, or Cooper Kupp — all of whom remain on the schedule — the newest Steeler will be the man to do it. Miami may have moved Fitzpatrick around too much without the support system needed to help him grow, but Mike Tomlin has the flexibility to shift him from deep coverage to a man-to-man position in the slot without sacrificing quality elsewhere.

Pittsburgh’s biggest problem on defense the past season and a half was the massive vacuum left behind by Ryan Shazier’s absence. While Fitzpatrick can’t replace that, he can provide the additional layer of coverage that allows Edmunds to sneak closer to the line of scrimmage and some of the receiver/tight end shadowing and tailback-thumping power Shazier once brought to the lineup.

If Fitzpatrick turns into the Troy Polamalu successor the club’s dreamed of and Rudolph is a worthy successor to Big Ben, this is a great deal for Pittsburgh. If Fitzpatrick gives the team an above-average starting presence in the slot and Roethlisberger plays well until he’s 40, it’s a solid trade. But if Fitzpatrick remains uncomfortable playing out of position, Rudolph is Landry Jones 2.0, and a nearly 40-year-old Roethlisberger can’t recover from a season-ending injury, the Steelers are screwed.

Pittsburgh made a big bet with a high ceiling but a catastrophic floor. If 2019 was going to be a lost season, the team could at least take solace in the high-value draft pick that would follow. Now that safety net is gone — and it’s up to a former Dolphin and a third-round quarterback to keep the Steelers from crashing to the NFL’s underworld.