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Minkah Fitzpatrick – August 12, 2018 Download PDF version

Sunday, August 12, 2018

S Minkah Fitzpatrick

(How do you feel about the way you played Thursday night? It seems like you received a promotion partly because of that. How did you feel being out there with the first team today?) – “I don’t know if it was too much of a promotion. I’ve been rotating in and out with the ones. We’re just trying different guys at different spots to try and get the best guys on the field. Not too much has changed from last week. Like I said, we’re just trying different things.”

(Do you feel comfortable at both slot and safety, or is there one you feel more comfortable at?) – “I feel comfortable at both. At Bama, I moved all around. Here, they give me reps all over the place. We all do a good job of just learning the system so we can be interchangeable, can be versatile. It adds value to our defense. It gives a benefit to our defense. It’s another plus.”

(What are some of the keys when you’re at that specific position, the inside corner position?) – “You’ve just got to know what everybody is doing around you. It’s a difficult position to play because at corner, you kind of have the sideline as a friend. At the nickel spot, you have nothing out there. You’re living on an island out there in the middle of the field, so you’ve got to know where your help is at and who’s doing what assignment. You’ve just got to know the concept of the defense rather than just your position. Since I was playing safety and a little bit of dime, I kind of understand what everybody is doing around me, so it helps me when I play that nickel spot.”

(When you look back at the film of Thursday, was it what you expected or better or worse? Your performance.) – “It was about what I expected. I was out there doing it, so I kind of knew what to expect. I see a lot. There’s some things I could have done better, obviously. That’s every game. I was pretty happy with my performance, but there’s always room for improvement, always things I could be working on.”

(Do you know those things on the spot? You seem pretty comfortable.) – “There’s sometimes where you kind of look to the sideline waiting for the coach to say something to you. They may catch it or may not catch it at the time but they’ll definitely catch it on film. There was about one instance this past week where that happened. When you understand the defense and you understand the concepts, you kind of know what you did wrong, and then sometimes of course, I’m still learning. Just sometimes I’ll mess up and one of the vets will come and say ‘You could have triggered faster or you could have done this better.’ I take it, I learn from it and apply it to the next time.”

(Have you set personal goals at intervals of camp and by the second preseason game and third preseason game of where you want to be?) – “For this camp and all of the way up to the first game, my goal was just to learn the defense, understand the defense and go out there and play fast. And then with that, establish myself as a great player on this team, as a dominant player on this team, a young player that the older guys can rely on just to do their job and that when I’m out there, they don’t have to worry about me. They’ll know that I’ll do what I’ve got to do and I’ll just do that by trying to communicate with them so they understand where my mind is at and they’ll know that I can do my job.”

(What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced thus far?) – “I’ll just say it’s the next level, so things come at you a little bit faster. Things are a little bit different. So it’s just learning the small things. I don’t think it’s been extremely challenging, but it has been challenging. I’ve been trying to find new ways to challenge myself. Moving around is difficult, especially when you’re learning the system, so I’d probably say that right there. Just moving around to different positions while trying to learn the defense. I didn’t really move around a whole lot until I learned the whole system at Bama, and then I started moving around. Here, as soon as I got here, I was hopping around. So it’s difficult, but it kind of helps me in the long run.”

(They kind of threw you in the deep end quickly?) –“Yes, sir.”

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