The Pittsburgh Steelers made Minkah Fitzpatrick the highest paid safety in the NFL during the off-season. With that contract comes large expectations amongst the organization and the fan base. But it appears that some bad luck has struck Fitzpatrick before he's even been able to hit training camp.
Pittsburgh Steelers Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick celebrates after recovering a fumble against the Tennessee Titans on December 19, 2021. CREDIT | Matt Freed/Post-Gazette
Today as players reported to camp head coach Mike Tomlin held his first official press conference of training camp. During his press conference he announced that Fitzpatrick will being the season on the non-football related injury list. According to Tomlin, Fitzpatrick was injured while riding a bike during vacation. He reportedly fell off the bike and injured his wrist.
Bob Pompeani from KDKA TV News was able to share this clip of Tomlin talking about the injuries.
"Minkah will be placed on NFI, he sustained a wrist injury on vacation," Tomlin said. "I think he fell off a bike. It will create some short term discomfort, but I don't expect it to be an issue in an overall trajectory of his development, and his place in this group, and stadium availability, and things of that nature. It's just going to create some discomfort for him at the early stages of this."
Mike Tomlin offers some injury news as #Steelers Training Camp begins. Specifically Minkah Fitzpatrick and Tyson Alualu news pic.twitter.com/ZlTGSeJwTA
— Bob Pompeani (@KDPomp) July 26, 2022
In addition to Fitzpatrick being on the injured list nose tackle Tyson Alualu will begin on the physically unable to perform list. Alualu has some swelling in his knee according to Tomlin. Tomlin downplayed the severity of either injury.
"Tyson Alualu has been placed on PUP [physically unable to perform]. He has a knee that's been swelling on him a little bit. Probably from over training. Similar discussion as Minkah, we don't expect it to be significant from a long term perspective."
