For a second straight week, the Pittsburgh Steelers fell flat against a team they should have beaten and some of the players didn’t have their hearts in it. The usually subdued Minkah Fitzpatrick had a lot to say after his team’s loss to the New England Patriots Thursday night and he wasn’t shy about taking shots at him own teammates.
“In order to see the fruit, you’ve gotta toil for it,” he said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “I think too many people don’t want to toil for it. They just want to walk out here and think that they’re going to make plays and think that they’re going to perform at a high level. I think we need to have more people who want to work for it, not expect it to be handed to them.
“This is the NFL. Nothing’s handed to you. You got to earn everything. I think that dudes just think that because they’re wearing the black and gold, that they’re going to win games, and I think we need to check that mentality and make people realize that they got to earn that mentality, and they got to earn every single blade of grass, every single splash play and every single rep that they get out there. They got to earn it.”
Fitzpatrick was one of the only guys on the field Thursday playing hard for the Steelers. It might be too little too late but this was something I hope his teammates heard and take to heart.