A hamstring injury kept Pittsburgh Steelers safety Minkah Fitzpatrick from playing in Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers. But that didn’t prevent the former Alabama All-American from affecting the outcome.

The Packers had possession at the Pittsburgh 16-yard line trailing by four points with three seconds to play. As Green Bay lined up for a win-or-lose play, Fitzpatrick could be seen in the ear of Steelers defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. He was lobbying hard for a different defensive call.

Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin came over. The Steelers called a timeout.

“Yeah, I had an idea,” Fitzpatrick said. “So me and (defensive-backs coach) Grady (Brown) talked him into changing it.”

After the timeout, Pittsburgh had seven defenders lined up across the goal line instead of normal man coverage pressing the receivers at the line of scrimmage, and safety Damontae Kazee intercepted Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love’s pass at the 2-yard line to wrap up a 23-19 victory for the Steelers.

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During a Thursday appearance on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show,” Fitzpatrick’s college coach, Nick Saban, said he wasn’t surprised that his former player had the football acumen to see what needed to be done.

“Minkah came here as a guy that had great football savvy, and he’s one of those attention-to-detail guys,” Saban said. “He wanted to learn as much about the game as he possibly could because he was really driven to be the best player that he could be. He had all the right competitive characteristics. He was a great person. He did everything. He was a good leader. And because he learned the game so well, you know, there are times when players look at you and say, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’”

With the Crimson Tide, Fitzpatrick was a two-time consensus All-American. He won the Bednarik Award as the nation’s best defensive player and the Thorpe Award as the nation’s best defensive back for Alabama’s CFP national-championship team in 2017.

Saban said listening to the input of good players is good coaching.

“I remember we played Dallas on Thanksgiving,” Saban said, “and they had just won the Super Bowl the year before, when I was at the Browns. And they had the ball, there was like seven or eight seconds to go in the game. We were up by four, so they had to score a touchdown. It was fourth-and-6 at the 6, and we have a big huddle on the sidelines. Red-2 was our base coverage down there inside the 10-yard line, which the players had a lot of confidence in. Bill (Belichick)’s talking, I’m talking, players are looking at me and say, ‘Why don’t we just play Red-2?’ Eric Turner tackled (Jay) Novacek short of the goal line, and we won the game.

“So that kind of input from players, I always welcome as a coach because they have to believe in what you’re doing, so if you call something and they don’t believe in it, it’s probably not going to work. Sometimes it’s good to listen to what they have to say. When you got guys like Minkah, who you have a tremendous amount of respect for, I always listen to those kind of guys.”

Fitzpatrick has been a first-team All-Pro selection in 2019, 2020 and 2022 for the Steelers.

Austin said with Fitzpatrick and some other regular defenders off the field, he initially called a play he was sure the team on the field knew.

“You get in those situations, I got a couple new guys in the secondary, so some of the things that you work on, they may not have worked on it,” Austin said. “And so, my initial thought, was, ‘Hey, let’s get them something where we can get them a little bit close.’ It takes a little bit of thinking out of it, and we don’t have anybody that lines up in the wrong spots. But they assured me that they thought that the guys that they had in the room would be able to line up where they needed them. And so that’s why we ended up going with their suggestion. It was a good call. And it’s like anything, man: When you have good players, you have good coaches. You have to listen to their counsel at times.

“And so I know what I thought, but they assured me that it would be run right, because if it wasn’t run right, we’d had to get rid of everybody.”

The Steelers play the Cleveland Browns on Sunday in an AFC North matchup of 6-3 teams. They’re trying to catch the Baltimore Ravens, who have a 7-3 record and are playing the division’s other member, the 5-4 Cincinnati Bengals, on Sunday.

Fitzpatrick has missed the past two games, and the hamstring injury kept him out of practice on Wednesday, too.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.