Minkah Fitzpatrick did not make ESPN’s top-10 safety rankings for 2026, released Wednesday. The list, compiled by Jeremy Fowler from a survey of league executives, coaches and scouts, slotted Kyle Hamilton first and left the New York Jets‘ biggest defensive acquisition in the “also receiving votes” group alongside Jalen Ramsey and Kevin Byard.
Set aside the resume for a moment and look at what can be verified. Fitzpatrick, 29, is a five-time Pro Bowler and three-time first-team All-Pro — as decorated as any defensive back of his generation. He also has two interceptions over his last three seasons combined, against 19 in his first five. And the market has already rendered its own verdict twice this year: Miami dealt him to a division rival in March for a 2026 seventh-round pick, the lowest draft compensation a trade can carry, and no other bidder forced the price higher.
The counter-argument is scheme, and it is not nothing. ESPN’s Brooke Pryor documented in 2024 how Fitzpatrick’s free-safety snap share fell from 76 percent in his All-Pro 2022 season to 51 percent the following year, with career-high usage in the box — deployment his own coordinator conceded didn’t play to his strengths. Fitzpatrick, for his part, told the Jets’ team site in June that he wants the movement: “I like being a chess piece. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the slot, but I don’t like being a moving target.”
So the honest accounting is this: the production says decline, the trade price says decline, and the voters say fringe top-10 — while the scheme data leaves room for a rebound and the Jets put real money behind that possibility with a $40 million extension. Aaron Glenn’s rebuilt secondary, which added nine potential new defensive starters this offseason, will test the proposition quickly. If Fitzpatrick sits deep and the ball production returns, the seventh-round pick becomes one of the best trades of the year. The evidence isn’t there yet.
For fantasy managers in IDP formats, Fitzpatrick is a value play with a defined thesis: deep-safety usage under Glenn’s staff would cap his tackle numbers but restore the interception upside that made him elite, and his current price reflects the down years rather than the possible role correction. Draft him as a DB2 with ball-hawk ceiling, not as the 2022 version.
