After the Miami Dolphins selected Alabama All-American safety Minkah Fitzpatrick with the 11th pick in the NFL Draft on April 26, team owner Stephen Ross didn't seem impressed.

"We'll see," Ross said. "Nobody knows for sure with this stuff."

Then the Boston Globe reported Ross had "implored" Dolphins general manager Chris Grier to trade the No. 11 pick to gain more selections and save money instead of drafting Fitzpatrick.

After the report, Ross told the Miami Herald he certainly had spoken up, but only to get the team's leaders to consider more strongly the possibility of acquiring more draft choices.

"Saving money will never be an issue when it comes to winning," Ross told the Miami newspaper.

Nobody may know for sure, as Ross said, but the Dolphins felt confident about what they were getting with Fitzpatrick. After all, Nick Saban, his college coach, had said: "Minkah does it as well as anybody I've ever coached in terms of how he works every day, how he finishes plays, his conditioning level. Just phenomenal."

For Miami coach Adam Gase, who worked for Saban at Michigan State and LSU, that was a telling endorsement.

"Anytime coach Saban has the amount of praise he had for him, you don't hear him say a lot of the things he said about him," Gase said on Tuesday.

Fitzpatrick told reporters at a Tuesday press conference that he'd heard about Ross' concerns on draft night.

"He's a businessman so he's going to look at the business side of anything," Fitzpatrick said. "It's a little extra motivation to prove I am worth the pick, that I deserve to be here."

Gase said Fitzpatrick had performed as expected in Miami's offseason practices.

"He's done a good job," Gase said. "He's gotten his hands on a lot of balls. Had a few interceptions. Seems to be all over the place. Has a great motor, great work ethic. It's been great seeing him kind of progress since that first day. You can tell he takes this very serious. This is what he does, and he puts everything he has into this."

Fitzpatrick said he'd been dividing his practice time fairly equally between free safety, strong safety and nickel back during the Dolphins' OTAs.

"Obviously when you're learning anything, you're not going to be moving as fast as you want to be," Fitzpatrick said. "But the coaches and other players are doing a good job of teaching me. I'm learning from my mistakes; learning from my good plays as well. It's just like learning anything: It's not going to be as fast at first. Every single day, I've gotten faster and faster, been able to make more calls, see more things, make more plays. It's just day by day. I'm getting better day by day."

Fitzpatrick said his Alabama preparation and the similarity between the Crimson Tide and Miami defenses had helped in his move to the NFL.

"If you utilize all of your resources at Alabama, you're definitely going to be prepared," Fitzpatrick said. "Whether it's the coaches, the physical training staff or just whatever. If you put 110 percent effort into it, you're going to be prepared. Just the scheme, it's almost the same exact thing, just small little differences you've got to learn, but the scheme's almost the same exact thing as Alabama. I'd just say the scheme and just overall I think we were prepared really well at Alabama."

Fitzpatrick said he saw some Saban in Gase.

"They're both very passionate coaches," Fitzpatrick said. "They're both really hands-on. The only difference is coach Saban yells a little bit more. But that's about it.

"Coach Gase is a great coach. He's a real energetic coach. All of the players love playing for him. I love playing for him, and I'm happy that he's my head coach."

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Fitzpatrick is practicing this week under contract after signing his four-year rookie deal last week. The contract has been reported as being worth $16,447,773, with all the money fully guaranteed and $10 million of it coming in the form of a signing bonus.

"It was a good feeling," Fitzpatrick said of signing his first NFL contract. "Anytime you see your hard work paying off, it's a blessing. Me and my family, we worked real hard to be in this position, but you've just got to keep telling yourself that it's not the end goal. It is a goal, but it's not the end goal. ... I didn't come here just to be a first-round pick. I want to be a great player here, establish a great legacy here. You've just got to keep on pushing."

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @AMarkG1.