Dolphins coach Brian Flores has 'moved on' from Minkah Fitzpatrick trade to Steelers

Brian Flores isn’t interested in rehashing history.

It has been nearly six weeks since the Miami Dolphins traded second-year defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick, a former No. 11 overall draft pick, to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Although the Dolphins face the Steelers on Monday night at Heinz Field, the first-year Dolphins head coach would rather not talk about the past.

“It’s something that happened. We’ve moved on as a team,” Flores said Thursday on a conference call with Pittsburgh reporters. “We’ve worked on ourselves and building and improving on a day-to-day basis. That’s where the focus is. If you start to think about anything other than that or this happened or why did that happen … we put our energy in other places.”

Such as winning a game, something the Dolphins haven’t done with or without Fitzpatrick. They are 0-6 on the season, losing two games with Fitzpatrick patrolling their secondary and four without him.

Flores isn’t surprised that Fitzpatrick has stabilized the free safety spot for the Steelers in the wake of Sean Davis’ shoulder injury that landed him on injured reserve.

“Not at all,” he said. “He’s a really good player. As a young player, I think he’s smart, he’s hard-working, football is important to him, and you’re not surprised he’s a good player there.”

Fitzpatrick bristled at being asked to learn as many as six positions with the Dolphins, which is one reason he asked for a trade after the team’s season-opening 59-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. Flores, though, doesn’t see Fitzpatrick doing anything with the Steelers that he didn’t also do in Miami.

“Minkah is a very versatile player,” he said. “He can play multiple positions. It looks like they are doing that with him, deep part of the field, in the box, man coverage, does a good job tackling. I think they’re doing a good job with him.”

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