With the Pittsburgh Steelers on a break before heading to Latrobe for training camp, we’re going to take a look at our expectations for this upcoming season and offer some over/under statistics to weigh in on. The offense wasn’t overly prolific last year, but the defense did put up some big numbers.
That can change in 2023 now that the offense is beginning to mature around second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett, though, and if the Steelers can keep T.J. Watt healthy all year, that will only help everybody be more productive—perhaps especially the defensive backs. So each day we’ll project one stat line, whether for a player or a unit, and share our thoughts before asking you to weigh in on whether you think they will hit the over or the under.
It is your job to project whether or not the over or under will be hit. At the end of the series we will be tallying up the answers for each installment to create a collective pre-training camp snapshot of where you stand heading into the 2023 season.
Stat Line: 16.5 sacks for T.J. Watt
As I’ve been reminded by the more betting-savvy among you, not all of my lines have successfully avoided a “push” possibility. I’ll endeavor to be more mindful of that going forward, though this series should not last much longer, since we still have positional reviews and training camp battle preview series to get to. For the record, in the way I formulate my lines, I view a “push” answer as taking the over, as I think of them as “at least this amount or more”.
In this case, 16.5 sacks can technically still qualify as a push, but think of it at 16.4 sacks. The basic premise is whether or not he will record, for the second time, more sacks than anybody else in a single season in franchise history except for his own mark of 22.5. Before he set that plateau in 2021, the team record was James Harrison’s 16 in 2008.
And that’s notable. For as good as Watt has been since he first stepped onto the field, the reality is that he’s only had more than 15 sacks once in his six seasons. Granted, he was still developing as a rookie and he was injured for much of last season, so you can really hone in on just years two through five. But he hit 13, 14.5, and 15 in those first three years before finally popping off in year five.
You want to know how many players in NFL history (starting with the official beginning of the sack statistic in 1982) have had multiple seasons with more than 16 sacks? It’s a short list. There have been 13. Just 13, in 40 years. Reggie White. J.J. Watt. DeMarcus Ware. Andre Tippett. Pat Swilling. Michael Strahan. Robert Quinn. Chandler Jones. Tim Harris. Kevin Greene. Mark Gastineau. Elvis Dumervil. Richard Dent.
Some names that aren’t on the list: Von Miller. Aaron Donald. Myles Garrett. Lawrence Taylor. Jason Taylor. Bruce Smith. Warren Sapp. Joey Porter Sr., Shawne Merriman. Robert Mathis. Dwight Freeney. Terrell Suggs. Justin Houston. Jared Allen. Khalil Mack. Point is, the second list is much, much longer.
Now back to full health, will Watt pick up where he left off in that season, or will he continue to be merely excellent and one of the best in the game rather than a transcendent difference-maker? Of course, that is by no means defined solely by sack totals, but it serves as a decent tentpole upon which to judge edge defenders as often as not. And let’s be honest, it’s the main individual statistic people care about.
So what do you think? Taking these factors and others into consideration, are you taking the over or under 16.5 sacks for T.J. Watt? Answer below and at the end of the series we’ll tally all your answers together to see where you stand before we get to training camp.
