Though he landed outside of the top 10 in Pro Football Focus’s top 50 players entering the 2024 season, there was no doubt that Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt would land inside the top 10 of the NFL Top 100, as voted on by the players.
Turns out, that was the case as Watt was announced as a top 10 player Friday night on NFL Network. Watt came in at No. 8 in the player voting, behind only Cleveland’s Myles Garrett at the EDGE position. Las Vegas OLB Maxx Crosby checked in at No. 10, while Watt was just ahead of Kansas City TE Travis Kelce at No. 9.
The 2023 season was a dominant one for the Steelers star.
Watt led the NFL in sacks with 19.0, becoming the fourth player in NFL history with two seasons of at least 19 sacks. He the first player to lead the NFL in sacks in three different seasons since the statistic became an official one in 1982.
Deacon Jones accomplished the feat five times, leading the NFL in the category in 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, and 1969, but that was well before the league made the sack an official statistic.
Watt led the NFL with 15 sacks in 2020, 22.5 sacks in 2021 while tying the official sack record in a single season with Michael Strahan, and 19 sacks in 2023.
Along with leading the NFL in sacks, Watt moved past his brother, J.J., for the second-most sacks in a player’s first 100 games, putting him just behind the legendary Reggie White. Additionally, Watt set the Steelers’ franchise sacks record in Week 2 against the Cleveland Browns last season, surpassing James Harrison in the process.
Not only that, Watt made a spectacular play in Week 7 on the road against the Los Angeles Rams, jumping a route intended for WR Cooper Kupp and picking off QB Matthew Stafford. That drew quite a bit of praise then, and months later in the NFL’s Top 100 voting.
Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. questioned if even he could make that play.
“He jumped that route. I was thinking to myself like, ‘Would I have made that play? Would I have caught that pass?'” Porter said of Watt, according to video via NFL Network. “He’s too big to be doing stuff like that. Like, it just doesn’t make sense.”
It didn’t make any sense that Watt would be in space and make that play looking like a defensive back, like his brother, J.J., pointed out after the play.
But that’s the magic of Watt.
Entering the 2024 season, Watt will eclipse the 100-sack mark for his career rather quickly and will continue to rack up the stats on his way to a Hall of Fame career. He’s going into his eighth season with a real chip on his shoulder after being snubbed in the 2023 NFL Defensive Player of the Year award, losing out to Cleveland’s Myles Garrett despite having an edge in a number of key statistical categories for EDGE rushers.
Garrett, for what it’s worth, checked in at No. 5 in the NFL Top 100.
