Steelers star calls out teammates for mindset, not wanting to work for it

After losing to a pair of two-win teams in four days, Pittsburgh Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick called out his teammates on Thursday night for having the wrong mindset going into games. 

After losing 24-10 to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, multiple Steelers players -- including running back Jaylen Warren and wide receiver Diontae Johnson -- talked about how they took the Cardinals lightly. Those are concerning comments coming from NFL players, but they had a chance to redeem themselves on Thursday night against the then 2-10 New England Patriots.

The Steelers went out and repeated all of the same mistakes in a 21-18 loss to put a huge dent into their playoff hopes. 

That set Fitzpatrick off after the game. 

In an interview with ESPN's Brooke Pryor, Fitzpatrick called out his teammates for not wanting to do the hard work and "toil" for the fruit. 

From ESPN:

“In order to see the fruit, you’ve gotta toil for it. 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.”