2018 NFL Redraft: Lamar Jackson saves the Cleveland Browns

12. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Minkah Fitzpatrick, S (Vita Vea, DT)

Miami selected Minkah Fitzpatrick with the eleventh overall pick in 2018. However, the Alabama product requested a trade early in his second season. He eventually landed with the Pittsburgh Steelers and earned a First-Team All-Pro selection as one of the top four or five safeties in the NFL.

There aren’t 11 players better than Fitzpatrick in the 2018 draft, and it seems crazy that he went one spot later in the redraft than in real life. However, four of the players who went ahead of Fitzpatrick are quarterbacks, and three are unproven. It’s just a case of teams prioritizing needs over talent, which worked in Tampa Bay’s favor.

To date, Tampa Bay’s secondary is one of the team’s few weak points. In 2018, Justin Evans and rookie Jordan Whitehead started the majority of games at safety for the Buccaneers. Even as a rookie, Fitzpatrick could’ve run circles around those two young players. He’d quickly become the center of Tampa Bay’s secondary the way Miami planned for him to be in theirs.

In an ESPN article published on Oct. 28, 2019, Cameron Wolfe and Brooke Pryor wrote,

"Parting with Fitzpatrick was never part of the Dolphins’ plan. The 2018 first-round pick was supposed to be a core piece of Miami’s total rebuild."

The article, which details the fallout of Fitzpatrick’s trade to Pittsburgh, shares Miami’s vision for the young defensive back when he joined the team.

"Fitzpatrick was viewed by some within the Dolphins organization as the next Honey Badger (Tyrann Mathieu) — an intelligent, hardworking, versatile player with Pro Bowl potential who could be the center of a defense for years to come."

Instead, Fitzpatrick shunned Miami. Maybe Tampa Bay would use him better and not run into the same dead end as the Dolphins.