{"id":203751,"date":"2025-07-13T11:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T11:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/203751\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T11:18:09","slug":"survey-says-dolphins-minkah-fitzpatrick-still-among-elite-safeties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/203751\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey says: Dolphins&#8217; Minkah Fitzpatrick still among elite safeties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/miami-dolphins\/345\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Dolphins;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Dolphins<\/a> fans are hopeful that Miami&#8217;s move to bring Minkah Fitzpatrick back home to South Beach pays off in a big way in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The deal ensures that Miami still has star power roaming throughout its defensive backfield even despite the departure of cornerback Jalen Ramsey. ESPN <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/espn-grades-dolphins-jalen-ramsey-232026857.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:said the Dolphins aced the trade;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said the Dolphins aced the trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Plenty of those in the know are a fan of what the 28-year-old Fitzpatrick can deliver in 2025. ESPN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/45530861\/top-10-nfl-safeties-execs-scouts-2025-espn-jeremy-fowler-position-rankings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:surveyed league executives, coaches and scouts;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">surveyed league executives, coaches and scouts<\/a> to find out which safeties they liked best in the league.<\/p>\n<p>Fitzpatrick earned the No. 9 spot.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He still has a lot to offer &#8212; incredibly hard worker, tone-setter, super solid running things on the back end and preventing big plays, things that go unnoticed,&#8221; an NFL coordinator said. &#8220;I&#8217;m expecting a bounce-back year from him.&#8221; &#8211; ESPN survey<\/p>\n<p>Though Fitzpatrick has dropped from No. 1 to No. 4 to No. 9 in the rankings over the past three years, the five-time Pro Bowler still garners enough respect to crack this top 10.<\/p>\n<p>Fitzpatrick joins names such as Kyle Hamilton, Brian Branch and Xavier McKinney inside the top 10.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-1, 207-pound safety had a pair of interceptions and nine passes defensed with the Dolphins during his rookie season in 2018. Fitzpatrick had a 50-yard pick-six against the Vikings during that rookie campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Fitzpatrick would morph into the league&#8217;s top safety during his time in Pittsburgh. In 2022, Fitzpatrick led the NFL in interceptions with six. During the 2019-22 seasons in Pittsburgh, Fitzpatrick registered 17 interceptions, 38 passes defended and 356 tackles.<\/p>\n<p>In 27 starts across the past two seasons, Fitzpatrick has recorded just the lone interception and seven passes defended. But, ESPN&#8217;s survey shows that there&#8217;s still optimism that Fitzpatrick has more elite play left in the tank.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Dolphins Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/dolphinswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/dolphins\/2025\/07\/13\/espn-survey-minkah-fitzpatrick-elite-nfl-safeties\/84903738007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Survey says: Dolphins&#039; Minkah Fitzpatrick still among elite safeties;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Survey says: Dolphins&#8217; Minkah Fitzpatrick still among elite safeties<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dolphins fans are hopeful that Miami&#8217;s move to bring Minkah Fitzpatrick back home to South Beach pays off&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2049],"tags":[1524,217,12,7,1815,1506,216,251,2087,7583,6,520,3235,5582],"class_list":{"0":"post-203751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-dolphins","8":"tag-brian-branch","9":"tag-dolphins","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-jalen-ramsey","13":"tag-kyle-hamilton","14":"tag-miami","15":"tag-miami-dolphins","16":"tag-miamidolphins","17":"tag-minkah-fitzpatrick","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-pittsburgh","20":"tag-the-dolphins","21":"tag-xavier-mckinney"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114845653895737475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}