Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt is one of the best players of his generation and could very well be considered the best pass rusher of the generation. Still, he’s only won one Defensive Player of the Year award, and generally hasn’t been talked about to the degree of some of his peers like Myles Garrett and Micah Parsons. Before the season, executives and coaches had Watt ranked behind those two and San Francisco 49ers DL Nick Bosa in a poll of the best defensive players in the league, and T.J.’s brother and former NFL All-Pro J.J. Watt is sick of T.J. being overlooked.
“I get so frustrated when he doesn’t get the recognition that he deserves in that capacity,” J.J. Watt said Wednesday on The Pat McAfee Show. “Because I also know extremely well how hard that is to do and how impressive that is, what he’s accomplished. So people will be like ‘Oh yeah, you’re biased, it’s your brother,’ all those things. Well, no, just literally look at it. It’s unbelievable, it’s insane, it’s incredible.”
J.J. said that T.J. isn’t frustrated by it and is just motivated by “pure football.”
The older Watt was referencing a graphic on the show that had some pretty remarkable stats showing how good T.J. is. It showed that the Steelers with a healthy T.J. Watt are 71-36-2 and only allow 20.3 points per game with 3.2 sacks per/game. When he doesn’t play, the Steelers are 1-11 and allow 26.7 points per game with just 1.5 sacks per game.
It also showed that when Watt gets a pressure, quarterbacks have a QBR of 2.7. It’s a pretty incredible breakdown of Watt’s dominance, and J.J. certainly has a point about the lack of respect that T.J. can get sometimes compared to his peers.
He’s the only player to officially lead the league in sacks three times, and he’s a true game-wrecker whom opponents have to specifically scheme against. And even then, he’s still borderline unstoppable. This season, he has a sack in each of Pittsburgh’s first two games and would have even more had penalties not wiped out two that he had in Week 1 against the Falcons.
Given just how good J.J. Watt was in his career, he knows how absurd some of the stats his brother is putting up are and how difficult it is to be that good week in and week out. So while it is his brother, it’s gotta be bothersome to look at the work and the effort that he’s putting in, while producing on a weekly basis, and see him not get the recognition that some other guys get with lesser production.
