Sunday’s Week 3 matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Chargers — both of whom are 2-0 — promises to be quite an old-school, knockdown, drag-out brawl inside Acrisure Stadium.
The two have identities built around running the football and playing great defense. It’ll be great to see two big-name head coaches clash, too, with Mike Tomlin and Jim Harbaugh set to battle, and there is an individual matchup within the game itself that has plenty of eyes on it.
That would be the matchup between star Steelers pass rusher T.J. Watt, and impressive Chargers rookie right tackle Joe Alt.
For the Good Morning Football panel, it’s going to be an impressive matchup featuring one of the best in the world at his craft in Watt and a player with an incredibly high ceiling in Alt just getting started in his career.
“T.J. Watt has the experience, 106 games he’s played in. That’s incredible. Most sacks, though, for T.J. Watt off rookie linemen. Look at this: 36-and-a-half sacks on rookie lineman,” former NFL defensive lineman Akbar Gbajabiamila said of the Week 3 matchup between Watt and Alt. “So this is really your old-school, your veteran guy going up against a new guy who’s got all the talent, all the bells and whistles.
“So, some impressive numbers right there. It’s gonna be an impressive matchup.”
Throughout his career, Watt has gotten the better of rookie offensive linemen, welcoming them to the NFL by beating them time and time again off the edge for big plays.
As Gbajabiamila pointed out, Watt has 36.5 career sacks against rookie linemen. In his career, Watt sits at 98.5 sacks. So, roughly 37% of his career sacks have come at the expense of rookie linemen.
Alt might be a different animal though. In his first two NFL games, he’s allowed just two pressures and was charged with a sack allowed in Week 2 against the Carolina Panthers.
In the Week 1 win over the Las Vegas Raiders, Alt didn’t allow a single pressure to star pass rusher Maxx Crosby when matched up with him. Now he’ll get a shot at Watt, the 2021 NFL Defensive Player of the Year who led the NFL in sacks last season with 19.5.
The Notre Dame product has generated quite a bit of attention so far in his NFL career and now in a marquee matchup against Watt, all eyes will be on him to see if he can hold his own once again.
“We’ll see how this goes. If he handles himself against T.J. Watt, it’s reminding me of the Goldberg streak of who’s next? Back in the days wrestling like 20 years ago when there was this phenomenon, which just taking everybody out,” GMFB’s Kyle Brandt added. “I think T.J. is the best defensive player in the world right now. And if he takes him, even if he just holds him to no sacks, we have a legitimate phenomenon…as a rookie offensive tackle. It’s so fun.”
It’s fun to see trench play generating more and more attention across the NFL. It’s a huge part of why teams win and lose games. It might not be the flashiest position group to watch, and there’s a lot of nuance to the position, which makes it harder to break down and fully understand, but it’s so key.
While the Chargers-Steelers matchup will be highly entertaining due to the style of play clashing against each other, it’ll be great to watch Watt and Alt battle it out snap after snap to see who can get the better of whom.
As Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman stated earlier in the week about his message to Alt in preparation for the tilt against Watt, Merry Christmas.
Hopefully the much-hyped matchup delivers some great presents on Sunday.
