Nick Saban dishes on Minkah Fitzpatrick's football smarts, using player input

Nick Saban has no shortage of great, smart football players that have played for him during his Alabama tenure. Current Pittsburgh Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick ranks near the top of the list, and showed off his mettle in a recent game.

With the Steelers leading the Green Bay Packers by a point in the final seconds of a game, Fitzpatrick — who is out with an injury — was seen in discussion with defensive coordinator Teryl Austin right before the snap. Fitzpatrick apparently didn’t like the look from the defense, which changed to a blanket coverage in the end zone and got a game-sealing interception after Fitzpatrick made his case.

It’s a moment that former NFL head coach Chuck Pagano asked Saban about on the Pat McAfee Show on Thursday.

“No. 1, Minkah came here as a guy that had great football savvy. And he’s one of those attention to detail guys and he wanted to learn as much about the game as he possibly could, because he was really driven to be the best player he could be,” Saban said. “And he had all the right competitive characteristics. He was a great person. He did everything. He was a good leader. And because he learned the game so well, there are times when players look at you and say, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?'”

Saban used an example from his days as the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns in the early 1990s, when he worked under Bill Belichick. It was a similar circumstance to what played out between the Packers and Steelers on Sunday.

“And I remember we played Dallas on Thanksgiving and they had just won the Super Bowl the year before, when I was at the Browns. And they had the ball, there was like seven or eight seconds to go in the game. We were up by four, they had to score a touchdown, it was 4th and 6 at the six and we have a big huddle on the sidelines. And Red 2 was our base coverage down there inside the 10 yard line, which the players had a lot of confidence in. And Bill’s talking, I’m talking, players all look at me and just say, ‘Why don’t we just play Red 2?’ And Eric Turner tackled [Jay] Novacek short of the goal line and we won the game. So that kind of input from players I always welcome as a coach,” Saban said.

Saban used that anecdote to convey one of the key parts of every play call, and why he might listen to players about what he calls: They have to believe in what they’re running. Saban prefers his defense to be confident and correct in the play they’re running.

And when a player like Fitzpatrick had a note, suggestion or bit of information to offer, Saban tends to try and listen to them.

“Because they have to believe in what you’re doing. So if you call something and they don’t believe in it, it’s probably not going to work. So sometimes it’s good to listen, to hear what they have to say and when you’ve got guys like Minkah who you have a tremendous amount of respect for, I always listen to those kind of guys,” Saban said.