The Steelers are now back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, facing down a long regular season that looks a lot more promising given how things have gone leading up to it. Finishing just above .500 last year, they anticipate being able to compete with any team in the league this season with second-year QB Kenny Pickett leading the way.
They’ve done a great deal to address what they identified as their shortcomings during the offseason, which included addressing the offensive and defensive lines as well as the secondary and the inside linebacker room, which is nearly entirely different from last year. The results have been positive so far.
Even well into the regular season and beyond, there are going to be plenty of questions that need answered. When will the core rookies get to play, or even start? Is the depth sufficient where they upgraded? Can they stand toe-to-toe with the Bengals and the other top teams in the league? We’ll try to frame the conversation in relevant ways as long as you stick with us throughout the season, as we have for many years.
Question: Did T.J. Watt do enough to secure the Defensive Player of the Year Award?
Although he exited yesterday’s game with a knee injury, we don’t as yet know if the Steelers will even have another game to play this season. What we do know is that T.J. Watt finished the regular season in strong form, posting two more sacks and six additional tackles, including a tackle for loss.
And we know that he finished tied or ahead of the prohibitive betting favorite for the Defensive Player of the Year Award, Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns, because he will not play in his team’s season finale with the Browns locked into the fifth seed of the AFC playoffs.
Watt finishes the year with 66 tackles to Garrett’s 42, 17 tackles for loss to Garrett’s 17, 19 sacks to Garrett’s 14. They both have four forced fumbles and one fumble recovered for a touchdown. That was Garrett’s only recovery, while Watt had three, in addition to an interception. He had eight passes defensed to Garrett’s three.
While he played one more game, Watt was already leading Garrett in all of these categories except tackles for loss, the latter leading by one. Garrett has produced one sack since Thanksgiving and has just two games all season with more than three tackles, the last such coming in October. Statistically, the argument is clear, but the argument doesn’t stop at statistics.
And it doesn’t stop with Watt versus Garrett, either. The Defensive Player of the Year Award is largely seen as a three-horse race at this point, the third contender being the Dallas Cowboys’ Micah Parsons, who will be playing in the finale.
Parsons enters the final week of the season with 59 tackles, 17 tackles for loss, 13 sacks, 32 QB hits, one forced fumble, and two passes defensed. He is six sacks behind Watt for the league lead. The Cincinnati Bengals’ Trey Hendrickson entered Week 18 tied with Watt for the NFL lead, yet we’ve heard next to nothing about him potentially being a candidate for the award.
