Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt is one of those NFL players coaches have to circle during game preparation. He can wreck games with his pass-rush ability and can even drop back in coverage to deflect passes or grab interceptions. After Sunday’s 18-10 win over the Atlanta Falcons, Watt has 97.5 career sacks. He’s two-and-a-half sacks away from 100 career sacks.
That demands attention and planning from opposing offenses. Yet Watt was arguably the best player on the field on Sunday. He had a sack, four tackles, two tackles for a loss, three quarterback hits, and a fumble recovery. He also had two strip-sacks called back on penalties. And one of those penalties was called by mistake. The Falcons had two weeks to prepare for T.J. Watt and they didn’t.
“They acted like they didn’t know he was gonna be at the game,” Michael Lombardi said on Thursday’s episode of the Pat McAfee Show. “I mean, they acted like he wasn’t gonna be there. I just, I don’t know what Atlanta was thinking. Obviously, they thought T.J. was off this week. I guess they missed that memo. If I’m coaching Atlanta, I’m not letting [Kaleb] McGary block…I mean, that’s coaching malpractice right there. You can’t block, this guy is the top player in the league.”
McGary was the 31st overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. He wasn’t a bad pass blocker the last two seasons with a grade of 66.9 in 2022 and 69.5 in 2023 from Pro Football Focus. So he can help protect his quarterback fine.
But Watt’s not a run-of-the-mill pass rusher. He has five seasons of double-digit sacks in his first seven seasons. Of those two seasons in which he didn’t get at least 10 sacks, one was his rookie season. The other was in 2022 when he missed seven games.
When Watt is healthy, he is the very definition of a game-wrecker. And the Falcons didn’t do anything to try to slow down that impact. They didn’t move QB Kirk Cousins around at all. They didn’t use play-action to slow down Watt or any other Steelers pass rusher.
Cousins called Watt “a special player,” noting that Watt left his mark all over that game. Most coaches wouldn’t want their quarterback speaking like that about their opponents’ star pass rusher. But that’s where the Falcons were left after the game Sunday. Watt wreaked havoc.
No wonder Lombardi called it coaching malpractice. The Falcons dangled Cousins in front of Watt and the rest of the Steelers’ defense like fresh meat to a pack of wolves. They didn’t do anything to give him quality protection.
And Watt feasted.
