In his Tuesday press conference, Mike Tomlin spends the first five minutes talking up the opponent. Their strengths, what they do well, the problems they’ll post that weekend. During his press conference Thursday, New England Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick offered something similar, spending the bulk of his time praising OLB T.J. Watt and K Chris Boswell.
For Watt, Belichick offered an encyclopedia -long answer about what makes Watt so effective. I’ll shorten the comments only slightly, but the entire presser can be watched here.
“He’s an instinctive player,” Belichick said via the Patriots’ YouTube channel. “He’s very quick off the ball. He has a good edge pass rush. He’s got really good lower-body strength and balance. He does a very good job of closing to the quarterback and rarely gets knocked off balance. He might get hit, but he’s able to play through contact and stay on his track.”
Watt continues to be one of the NFL’s most dominant players. After battling injuries last season, he’s rebounded with a big 2023 campaign. Through 12 games, he has 14 sacks, now second in the NFL only behind the Los Angeles Chargers’ Khalil Mack, who is on a hot streak and now has 15 on the season. Watt’s on pace to make his sixth Pro Bowl and fourth All-Pro team.
Watt’s well-rounded game makes him a big-time threat. His film study creates one of the NFL’s best get-offs, stressing tackles to defend the edge. His ability to knock down hands and fight through contact makes him a menace and his hot motor allows him to impact the play even when being chipped and doubled. Take this sack against the Cincinnati Bengals two weeks ago. Swim over the tight end, swipe past the right tackle, corner, and force the fumble to get the third-down stop.
But Watt isn’t just a pure pass rusher. He plays the run as well as any EDGE player in the league and is part of a Steelers run defense that has bounced back, especially with the return of DL Cam Heyward.
“He’s a very good pursuit player. He makes a lot of plays from the backside or makes plays where you think he’s blocked,” Belichick said. “You think he’s out of the play and he’s able to cross face the blocker, get back in the play and has enough speed and desire, I would say motor to get to some of those plays in the backside when you think that he should be a non-factor.”
Those types of plays litter his tape. In fact, Watt made a backside tackle on the first play of Sunday’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals, cleaning up this play to contain RB James Conner.
Since entering the league in 2017, Watt has 56 solo tackles against the run that resulted in a loss or no gain. That ranks fifth in the NFL over that span, only trailing Aaron Donald, Demario Davis, Lavonte David, and Bobby Wagner. Watt is the only EDGE player on that list, all while missing half of last season, and his numbers tower over the likes of DE Myles Garrett
Even when he’s not in the backfield, Watt still finds ways to disrupt the game.
“He’s got good ball awareness,” Belichick said. “He knocks down a lot of balls because of his awareness and sometimes the route that the back runs. And so he can sort of anticipate where the ball’s gonna be thrown.”
Watt has seven pass deflections this season, one shy of his career-high set in 2019. Across the board, the Steelers’ defensive line has placed an emphasis on getting hands up in throwing lanes after facing a series of backup quarterbacks who were determined to get the ball out quickly, making it hard to generate pressures and sacks. Watt had a breakup against Arizona last week on an attempted WR screen, and few are better at sitting and reading the shoulder of the quarterback to take away slants and in-breaking routes.
“He’s got that really good reach move with his left hand,” Belichick said. “He’s got a lot of strip sacks on that through the years where he is engaged with the blocker and still is able to knock the ball out of the quarterback’s hand with that left arm reach. I’d say that’s kind of his patented move and he’s really, really good at it.”
Watt has forced three fumbles this season and has 26 in his career, leading the league with eight of them in 2019. Since 2017, those 26 fumbles lead the league, four more than the second-place Mack. A complete player, a future Hall of Famer, and a challenge for Belichick’s struggling Patriots’ offense. Watt will try to keep their misery going.
When it comes to Boswell, Belichick had shorter but just as strong praise.
“Boswell is one of the best kickers in the game,” he said. “So it’s a weapon for them in close games. It’s important to have that. That player performs on game-winning plays a lot of the times.”
The answer came in response to how the Steelers are finding ways to win despite having an offense that’s hardly more productive than the Patriots’, only scoring two more touchdowns this year than New England and averaging just 16 points per game. Boswell’s leg has been critical for a Steelers team that has only won close games this year, all seven victories by one-possession, and has an offense that struggles to finish drives. Boswell has missed just two kicks on the year, a 61-yarder against Jacksonville before slicing a 45-yarder wide right in Sunday’s loss to Arizona. The Patriots are going through kicker problems, rookie Chad Ryland missing several this season, highlighting the importance of having someone like Boswell all the more.
