All-Twenty Tuesday: Alabama CB Minkah Fitzpatrick

“I don’t see any flaws in the guy. He can play all the positions, he’s aggressive, he’s a student of the game and he’s already acting like a professional athlete.”

“I remember when Myles Jack was coming out of college, and there was all this conversation about where do you play him? I remember talking to a defensive coordinator and said, ‘Man, well where do you play this kid?’ And he said, ‘You play him on defense.’ I think it’s the same thing with Minkah.”

It’s an often-used phrase in the game of football to say that if you play too many position than you don’t really have one, meaning you’re good at a bunch of things, but not good enough in one of them to stick at the highest level. Is that Alabama cornerback Minkah Fitzpatrick? No, it’s not, but there is still debate as to which position the highly-touted defensive back is going to play in the NFL.

Fitzpatrick’s case has been an interesting one at Alabama. Over his three years as a starter (yes, since his true freshman season), Fitzpatrick has recorded at least one snap at free safety, strong safety, outside corner, nickel corner and outside linebacker. Fitzpatrick has recorded 171 tackles, 16.5 tackles for loss, five sack, nine interceptions, two forced fumbles and has four defensive touchdowns in three seasons. He is a Consensus All-American, a Jim Thorpe Award winner (nation’s best defensive back) and a Chuck Bednarik Award winner (nation’s best defensive player).

But, does Fitzpatrick have a home position? In college football things are different. What you’re seeing more an more is the development of the STAR position, which is often a hybrid defensive back position of a player who is skilled enough to play nickel cornerback and yet strong enough to play as either a box safety or even a linebacker, at times. Only elite college players can do this. Jabrill Peppers played this type of role two years ago for Michigan and Derwin James played something like it last year for Florida State, too.

The reason they do this is because the defense doesn’t have to switch as much when the offense tries to go mismatch personnel. In theory, this STAR player would be quick enough to handle slot receivers, strong enough to handle tight ends and athletic enough to rush the passer/monitor the flat for screens and dump off passes. It’s a great strategy if you have the special kind of player in college to pull it off, but it makes prospect analysis for those guys a bit tricky when predicting their NFL outlook.

Being a lockdown cornerback is the most valuable defensive back position, so if you can play on the outside, that’s where you’ll be. An elite, single-high free safety with speed and ball skills is probably the next most important position in today’s game of football, but elite nickel cornerbacks are being coveted more and more, too, with offensive mismatches from the slot being more and more emphasized.

Then there’s box safeties or strong safeties, and finally there’s hybrid linebackers. That’s the order of importance for the NFL game in terms of where players of that STAR position can branch out into, and that’s important to know when judging who Fitzpatrick is as a prospect, because how well you think he can do at each position tells you where his draft ceiling might be.

Let’s take a look.

I think one of the first things you have to mention when evaluating Fitzpatrick is what he’s like coming on a blitz. This is something that already shows some good traits that Fitzpatrick has.

For starters, there is barely any wasted time or movement in what Fitzpatrick does. You can tell that he prepares for his role and his opponent well and when a play is call he knows exactly what he’s doing and when to do it. This especially shows up on plays where he is blitzing.

The second trait to take away from when he rushes is how quickly he accelerates. Fitzpatrick goes from zero to 60 very quick. It only takes him about three steps to be at top speed, and his top speed is quite fast. Being that explosive when either starting and stopping or changing direction is a translatable trait to other areas of playing defensive back.

It’s rare to be confident and yet patient, but Fitzpatrick shows that ability, at times. He’s not always perfect with that, and we’ll get there later in his analysis, but I think it is important to see that sometimes he is and that’s worth noting. It’s hard to go from off coverage to hitting top speed just to slow down, contain and ultimately wrap up like he did in the clip above.

This again also shows confidence. That, at all times, is a trait that Fitzpatrick does not lack.

Something else I noticed Fitzpatrick does very well within his game and his responsibilities is that he knows what his job is.

Take the play above for example. Like the clip above that, Fitzpatrick was responsible for guarding the flat, as we explained is the case for players in that STAR role. Just like before, he accelerated very quickly to where the ball was going, but this time there was a lead blocker getting in his way. Instead of hesitating and only focusing on where the ball was, Fitzpatrick knew he was going to be the first defender there and just took that lead blocker out of the play as to not allow him to block or get in the way of multiple defenders, which could have been the case if Fitzpatrick hesitated. Instead, he did the dirty work and just ran the blocker off so his teammates could have the clear path at the ball carrier sooner.

It’s little things like that I noticed while watching Fitzpatrick that make you really appreciate the football player he is. Not only is he confident, but he’s also aware. Again, rare.

Now this is where things get a little tricky. Fitzpatrick is already pretty sound mentally. He knows and processes the game of football at a very high level for his age, and that’s only going to pay off more and more. But, in terms of execution, there is still and element of “finishing” to his game that needs to be refined.

The clip above is just one example of where Fitzpatrick’s tackling skills need to be improved on. He already did the hard part. He was able to fly into the pocket so fast the quarterback couldn’t even avoid him. But, you have to either contain him or wrap him up, and Fitzpatrick failed to do either there.

Something else I noticed about Fitzpatrick is that he dives for ball carriers’ feet quite a bit. Now, he’s a defensive back, I get it, they’re often much smaller in frame and need to find a way to just fly in a trip guys up sometimes. But, this is where things get interesting.

Many people believe that Fitzpatrick is a safety in the NFL. According to what he played more in college, that would suggest him to be more of a strong safety or a box safety playing close to where the linebackers play. But, Fitzpatrick is 6-foot-1, 195 pounds. He’s not playing enforcer like many teams would need their strong safety to do in the NFL, and that’s evident in how he opts to tackle in his tape. I’m not saying his tackling can’t get better, but how much better can it get if you’re saying he’s a strong safety? At cornerback? Sure. I think his tackling can be plenty adequate. But, he’s not playing enforcer at that body type.

So then you think, okay, well he’s obviously incredibly athletic, so he can play as a free safety. Fitzpatrick probably could play free safety in the NFL, and play it well, in time, but if you thought he didn’t play outside corner much, he almost never played deep safety, especially in 2017. So, at that point, you’re asking him to learn a position that almost relies on more instincts than athleticism for the first time in the NFL – for the Bucs specifically, they don’t need a free safety because they just spent a second-round pick on Justin Evans. Again, I think he can do it, but this notion that Fitzpatrick is a start-right-away-safety isn’t as much of a guarantee in his rookie year as you might think.

What Fitzpatrick might lack when it comes to transitioning to safety at the next level, he makes up for in fearlessness.

I love this so much about Fitzpatrick. You’ll see when we get to the coverage portion of his breakdown, too, that Fitzpatrick believes he can take on any offensive player, and he often doesn’t care who is in his way. As we showed before, he doesn’t mind doing the dirty work and he doesn’t mind throwing himself at players at full speed.

You just cannot teach what you see in the clip above. That is fearlessness at its finest.

Since Fitzpatrick received playing time as a true freshman, he’s had a bad-ass mentality. He may not have the frame or the technique yet to always come in and make sure tackles, but when you see a guy do what Fitzpatrick did in the clip above, take on two blockers at full speed, blow through them and trip up the ball carrier, the rest of the defense see that and feeds off it. No corner in Tampa Bay does that right now.

All right now let’s get to the reason you all came here. We all know Fitzpatrick can play nickel corner and play it at a very high level, but can he play outside cornerback in the NFL? Because he has to be able to do that at the next level to be worth the Bucs spending the seventh overall pock on him. Fitzpatrick only played 13 snaps at outside corner in 2017, so in order to adequately predict whether or not here can, we’re going to have to look deeper than just the total reps and get into some of the traits that we can catch in some obscure clips.

The play above, for starters, is nothing special. In fact, the ball didn’t even go to the player Fitzpatrick was guarding. But, I like it because it shows what Fitzpatrick is like lined up in press coverage. The stance and the nature of the coverage is translatable to the outside, even though this clip is of him guarding a player from the slot.

The trait I want you to takeaway from this clip is how smooth Fitzpatrick is when going from a square up position (looking straight at the wide receiver) to a turn-and-run position. The flip of his hips and no wasted steps gave way for a smooth transition when covering the drag route. Fitzpatrick has the straight line speed to play any defensive back spot, but being able to always stay near a receiver to not even warrant a throw involves smooth speed. Fitzpatrick shows he has that, too.

In the 2016 game he played versus Arkansas we actually got to see some of Fitzpatrick work on the outside.

Sometimes you’re not always afforded the luxury of just a simple hip twist and run to keep up with a wide receiver. Sometimes it has to be a violent full body turn and back into accelerating. That’s what was called for in he play above, and Fitzpatrick did it very well. He also showed off the recovery speed, too.

But, this clip also shows us some of where Fitzpatrick lacks the nuances of paying outside cornerback. Outside corner is such a tough position to play because you never completely know where a receiver is going. But, it’s never good to be fully turned around like Fitzpatrick was. It’s a technique and a practice thing, but Fitzpatrick can’t get caught like that in the NFL. That’s a hint that he would be raw as an outside corner, even if you think he can play there. Which is fine, but you have to be honest about it. It’s what brings a risk factor into play, even if you believe he’s worth a top pick as an outside corner – which I lean towards.

What is probably the most encouraging sign, to me, that Fitzpatrick can play outside in the NFL is how close he constantly stays with his receivers.

The play above is a catch, but outside of anticipating the route better (which is nearly impossible), you couldn’t play that pass any better than Fitzpatrick did. You would hope that experience could lend itself to not exposing his back as much, but we don’t have to focus on a nuance That’s an experience thing and we know he doesn’t have that. Focus on the traits. Fitzpatrick read the receivers hips, stayed with him almost step-for-step, including when he tried to juke him, played the sideline well and almost even got his hand over there knock the ball away.

That’s really encouraging outside cornerback work. A lot of that is translatable.

Here’s a look at how Fitzpatrick did in off coverage.

Yes, the pass came from a player in the slot, but Fitzpatrick was smooth in his back pedal and even though you can’t see him flip his hips and start running with the receiver, you know he did it quick and smooth due to him being even with the receiver that far down the field. That is also an outside cornerback trait as outside receivers are often the ones going deep. How good Fitzpatrick is at flipping his hips one direction while keeping stride and even accelerating is what gives him a chance to be a very good outside cornerback.

I think he can be. The one thing that is missing is the game tape of him covering elite college wide receivers on a down-in, down-out basis as an outside cornerback. That’s going to give some teams some pause, as those scouts have to do some real projecting here.

Finally let’s talk about the ball skills.

When you play outside or shutdown corner, you have to take the ball away from time-to-time; end of story. The defense needs you to do that.

Even beyond Fitzpatrick bumping his man in press coverage and flipping his hips so fast he was even out in front of the receiver to the sideline, look at the concentration to bring that interception in over the shoulder. Don’t tell this man cornerbacks can’t catch.

I’m not focusing on the fact that the ball was supremely under-thrown. That doesn’t matter. Look how natural Fitzpatrick was to go out full length and grab that ball in mid-air. I feel like every Fitzpatrick interception I see he’s just snagging it like it’s second nature to him. There’s no overthinking to it. There’s no worry he’s gonna drop it. He just does it.

Oh, and, by the way, the clip above was a 100-yard pick-6 that Fitzpatrick took all the way.

There’s a lot to take in with Fitzpatrick. The are areas of each of his projection to the NFL where he’ll need some work, or some honing of his craft – that might be a better way to say it. But, there is no doubt that this kid is a stud. To be able to “wow” coaches at Alabama the second you get on campus at age 18 and three years later you’re still “wow”-ing the rest of us projecting your NFL future, tells you something. He hasn’t really been coached to play outside cornerback, and I think that if given a shot, Fitzpatrick possesses the foundational skills and athletic ability to possibly develop into a high-end outside cornerback in the NFL.

Fitzpatrick is committed, he’s confident, he’s aware, he’s fearless and he’s one of the smoothest hybrid defensive backs I’ve seen since Charles Woodson. Whatever position he plays for whatever team, there aren’t many like him.