After battling through an injury-plagued season that hindered his production, Pittsburgh Steelers star outside linebacker T.J. Watt fell outside of the top 10 of Pro Football Focus’ PFF50 Thursday morning.
Watt, who had just 5.5 sacks last season in 10 games, missing seven games due to a partially torn pectoral muscle, landed at No. 13 in the PFF50 compiled by Sam Monson. It’s not the first time Watt has dropped in rankings this offseason. Previously, Watt fell out of the top spot at the EDGE position in ESPN’s rankings.
“Injuries limited T.J. Watt to 10 games in 2022, so it’s easy for people to overlook him, especially as multiple other elite edge rushers dominated during the full season. But that would be a big mistake. Watt had earned three consecutive 90.0-plus pass-rushing grades before injury took him down, and he has a massive 23 forced fumbles in his six-year career,” Monson writes regarding Watt’s ranking at No. 13 overall.
Though the overall production was down, as far as sacks numbers go, and the injury was a bit of a concern, continuing a trend in which he’s struggled with injuries the last two seasons, Watt is historically a beacon of health in the NFL. And when he’s healthy, he’s a dominant player.
Prior to last season, Watt was a beacon of health overall. He played in 77 of a possible 80 games and recorded snap count percentages of 82, 86, 86, 88, 73 and 83%.
Before going down with the injury late in the fourth quarter of the Week 1 win, Watt looked like his usual dominant self. He recorded a sack, three tackles for loss and an interception before that ill-fated play in which he tried to sack Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow but slid off as Burrow ducked under, resulting in Watt partially tearing his pectoral, landing him on Injured Reserve.
When Watt came back he was his usual disruptive self, making a play at the line of scrimmage on his first snap against the New Orleans Saints in Week 10, signaling his return.
Watt recorded 29 pressures in the second half of the season, including a season-high six against the Cleveland Browns in Week 18. While he said it took him awhile in his return to really feel like himself, he was still a very good player overall.
Though his numbers were a far cry from the 22.5 sacks he recorded in 2021, tying the single-season sacks record with Michael Strahan, Watt sitting at No. 13 in the PFF50 is a bit of a slap in the face, and goes against everything Monson wrote about him overall. If it’s a “big” mistake to overlook him, as Monson says, maybe he should have followed his own advice and placed Watt where he rightfully deserves regardless of his injuries last season, that being squarely in the top 10 in the NFL and at the top at the
