When you are a master of your craft, others may say that you have telepathic powers, being able to read and sense was is going to happen before it occurs.
This appears to be the case for Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt, who plays so fast that many times, it looks like he knows where the ball is going even before its snapped. While that can come from intuition, that sixth sense often comes from in-game experience as well as dedicated film study.
That’s what Watt’s older brother, J.J. Watt, said about T.J. on The Pat McAfee show on Wednesday, appearing as a guest and talking about his younger brother’s tireless dedication to the game away from the field. When Watt and McAfee started to break down T.J. Watt’s most recent performance Sunday night against the Las Vegas Raiders, J.J. Watt gave McAfee a little tidbit on Watt’s sack and why he pointed to the sideline afterwards.
“Now if you watch, he points to the sideline right away,” Watt said on The Pat McAfee Show which aired live on YouTube. “So as soon as I saw this on TV, I said that there was something that he knew about this play-action that he was never going to bite on the run fake. He was going for the sack. So, I asked him about it. I said ‘Dude, you gotta tell me about it man. What was the point about? What did you know, what was your key?’ And he said ‘Last year on this exact same play, I bit on the run fake. And I told Coach Tomlin throughout the week that I’m not going to bite on that run fake this time.’ So, he got the sack, and he pointed straight to Tomlin, and he was like ‘I told you!’”
As you can see from the clip above, Watt immediately gets up after taking down QB Jimmy Garoppolo for the sack and looks toward the sideline, pointing to Tomlin, signaling that he knew that it was going to be a run fake. J.J. Watt mentioned that T.J. was frustrated after biting on that same fake last season when the Steelers played the Raiders in Pittsburgh in Week 16, keeping that in the back of his mind during prep for Las Vegas this season, which ended up leading to another sack under Watt’s belt.
Watt leads the league in sacks with six through three games, well on-pace to break the single season sack record he tied back in 2021. A lot of that comes from Watt’s athleticism and dedication to honing his craft as a pass rusher, but also his dedication to the game from a film study perspective of the field. Watt is a true student of the game, looking to continually improve as a player in any aspect possible.
It would be easy for someone as good as Watt to coast given his accomplishments to date, but that hunger and desire to be great has gotten him to this point and continues to drive him toward an even higher level if that’s possible based on what he’s done this far in his NFL career. It may have not been telepathy that got him that sack against the Raiders on Sunday night, but Watt was so confident in his preparation that he had no hesitation on pulling the trigger despite the run fake. It’s the reason why he’s the best pass rusher in the league and may very well own the single-season sack record outright after this season.
