It is a debate that will rage on for a long, long time. Who is the best defender in football between Pittsburgh Steelers EDGE T.J. Watt and Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett?
Both have one Defensive Player of the Year award, both are perennial first-team All-Pro defenders, and both are among the biggest names in football.
If one were to look at this purely from a statistical standpoint, there really wouldn’t be much of a debate as Watt has the better stats overall.
Of course, this debate isn’t centered on your standard counting stats, though. Instead, it’s based on advanced analytics like pass rush win rate, double team percentage, and more. Apparently, now it includes who hits the hardest.
Former Cincinnati Bengals’ defensive end Duane Clemons, who played for the Bengals from 2003-05, gave Garrett the edge over Watt for the “most dangerous defender in football” because of his “thump” in an appearance on “The Ed Block CourageCast” earlier in the week.
“T.J. is probably a little quicker, but the thump, the thump that Garrett brings…you don’t want that,” Clemons said of Garrett, according to audio via the show’s podcast page.Â
Yes, Garrett is a physical freak. At 6-foot-4, 272 pounds, Garrett looks like a comic book superhero, one generated in a lab. He’s a great athlete overall, too. There is no denying that. He’s a great football player as well.
But he simply doesn’t produce as consistently as Watt does, especially when it comes to those big, game-altering splash plays. That’s what makes a defender dangerous, not his size and his physicality.
Sure, he had a big hit on former Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett in the Week 11 matchup in Cleveland last season. He got home quickly on a blown blocking assignment, leading to a big hit and a near-safety. But that type of stuff doesn’t make him dangerous, per se.
Football is a physical, violent sport, especially at the NFL level. All the guys are big, strong, physical freaks. That’s the nature of the game at this point. Somehow, that gives Garrett an edge in Clemons’ eyes, though.
That’s rather puzzling coming from a former player.
It should be about the production, period. Sure, Garrett is a better athlete than Watt. He’s bigger, too. That’s perfectly fine. But Watt is better at his craft than Garrett, and it’s not particularly close.
Check out the side-by-side comparisons between Watt and Garrett.
Yes, Watt has four more games played than Garrett, but he is head and shoulders above the Browns’ star in every single category for pass rushers.
Not too long ago, stats like this would have been the only real factor in discussions like this. But the game has changed some, and the way the game is talked about, covered, and viewed has changed as well.
Both players are great, and there is mutual respect between the two. But the argument on who has better has gone so far off the rails in the last three years that now part of the argument is who hits harder, and that’s coming from a former NFL player, too.
Hopefully Watt can have another monster year, putting him on a Hall of Fame path, and can add another DPOY to his trophy case, putting this discussion to bed for a bit.
