Are you ready for the new contender for the single stupidest controversy in Pittsburgh Steelers history? Considering some of those in the running just from the 2020 season alone, it’s actually pretty impressive that we might have a new leader in the clubhouse, but here it is: there is a dispute over whether or not T.J. Watt attended his exit meeting—and the one on the side saying that he didn’t is Mark Madden.
“I am told that T.J. Watt refused to participate in his exit interview”, he said on his radio show earlier this week, as conveyed by Tim Benz of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “That he was angry about something. That he just said, ‘Send my stuff to Wisconsin. I’m outta here’”.
Watt himself refuted the report on Twitter. “Would love to hear who Mark’s sources are”, he wrote. “They certainly can’t be myself, Coach T, Kevin Colbert or Coach Butler. All of whom I met with during exit interviews, prior to packing my own things after a hard fought season trying to give everything I have for the city of Pittsburgh”.
Amazingly, Madden doubled down in a series of Tweets, ‘double checking’ with his source and insisting that his source is more reliable than Watt, saying that he 100 percent stands by his report and notes that people deny things that are true all the time.
Of course, Madden doesn’t have the greatest track record in the world as far as credibility goes, so it’s no surprise that this story hasn’t gained any traction that I’ve seen in terms of it being accepted as valid and credible.
Mark Kaboly of The Athletic refuted Madden’s report on The Fan. “Everything I was told was he was there, he went through it, he met with trainers, he met with whoever he needed to meet with, I have no idea what was said”, he stated.
“T.J. is a very emotional player but what I’ve learned about T.J. is he’s an emotional player right after a loss, right after a win, the next day, he’s back to normal I’m guessing most players are like that but I can’t see like three or four days later him being still emotional about anything”, he added.
Jeff Hathorn of The Fan also refuted Madden’s report in stating that Watt went through the exit meeting process, though he added in insisting that it’s imperative that the Steelers “set the record straight” in order to avoid the appearance that “the inmates are running the asylum”…which I think it ridiculous.
Because nobody with any credibility took this with any seriousness in the first place. And I don’t think many people would care if he did skip it anyway.
