Fitzpatrick livid over personal foul call
INDIANAPOLIS — Minkah Fitzpatrick was visibly irate with officials on the field in the moments after he was flagged for unnecessary roughness late in the third quarter Sunday.
In the locker room after the 27-24 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, Fitzpatrick was still hot.
“I don’t even know how we are supposed to play anymore,” Fitzpatrick said rhetorically about the 15 yards he was assessed for a hit on rookie receiver Adonai Mitchell.
Running full speed to meet up with Mitchell about 25 yards downfield late in the third quarter, Fitzpatrick contacted Mitchell’s right shoulder with his left shoulder after Mitchell short-armed a pass down the sidelines from Joe Flacco.
“I mean, I thought we were playing football,” Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t know what we are playing at this point. A very different game than what I grew up playing and what I grew up loving. Can’t hit anybody hard, can’t be violent. So I don’t know what to say anymore.”
Fitzpatrick wasn’t the only Steelers player incensed at officials for calling the infraction. It turned what would have been an Indianapolis third-and-10 from their own territory into a first down at the Steelers’ 42. Indianapolis scored its third touchdown six plays later.
In what was a one-score game at the time, the sequence was consequential to the final result.
“That was bull(crap),” Steelers safety DeShon Elliott said. “I don’t care.”
Elliott surely was referencing that he didn’t care about any NFL fine or discipline resulting from his comments criticizing the call.
“I don’t care. That was BS,” Elliott said. “That was not OK, because that was legal. He did nothing malicious. He didn’t even hit him in the head — he led with his shoulder. And he went in head up, so I don’t know what that was about.”
Fitzpatrick said the explanation the officials gave him for throwing the flag was that Mitchell was a defenseless receiver and that Fitzpatrick hit him in the head.
The second aspect was not accurate — the contract was shoulder to shoulder. The “defenseless player” criteria is more subjective.
“I don’t understand how he’s defenseless if he’s going for the ball,” Fitzpatrick said. “I am going to make a play on him or the ball, (and) just because he puts his arms down at the last second, it shouldn’t be a penalty. I didn’t hit him in the head either, but if you hit people hard they’re throwing flags now.”
The league defines “players in a defenseless posture” as “a receiver attempting to catch a pass who has not had time to clearly become a runner. If the player is capable of avoiding or warding off the impending contact of an opponent, he is no longer a defenseless player.”
“It shouldn’t matter,” Fitzpatrick said, “because I have every single right to go for the ball. If I went clean in, and he lower his head … it shouldn’t be a penalty. I am allowed to go for the ball, just like he’s allowed to go for the ball.”
