Leading up to the Atlanta Falcons’ Week 1 matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said that he wouldn’t let Steelers OLB T.J. Watt wreck the game. After Pittsburgh’s 18-10 win, Morris was singing a different tune, admitting that Watt did indeed wreck the game.
“T.J. Watt is that kind of guy. He’s always gonna go out there and cause those kind of problems. You have to give him more credit, just being who he is. He had two sacks today, he jumped offsides early and got one that looked a little scary, but he was way offsides, jumped off pretty clear, but you gotta go out there and maintain him. Can’t let him wreck the game, and he was able to wreck it by getting that fumble recovery and getting a couple key sacks there to get those things going,” Morris said via the Falcons’ YouTube channel.
While Watt only had one sack, not two as Morris said, he was in the backfield often with a number of pressures and he recovered a fumble on a botched snap that helped Pittsburgh take a 12-10 third-quarter lead. Morris’s statement that Watt was “way offsides” is also about as factual as his comment about not letting Watt wreck the game, as the official admitted to Watt that he messed up the call and Watt just did a good job jumping the snap.
Watt finished the game with 4 tackles, 2 tackles for a loss and 3 quarterback hits in addition to his sack, which came on the final play of the game, walking off the win for the Steelers. He’s such a hard player to contain, no matter what the game plan is, and while Atlanta went in with a focus on stopping Watt, they simply couldn’t do it.
It was a great start to the season for Watt as he looks to win his second Defensive Player of the Year award and lead the league in sacks for a fourth time, and it would’ve helped his cause even further had the first-half sack not been called incorrectly. Pittsburgh’s defense as a whole played really well, forcing three turnovers and picking off Kirk Cousins twice, while holding the Falcons scoreless in the second half.
A big part of the effort was Watt and his ability to rush the passer. No one can deny that despite Atlanta’s best efforts, he wrecked the game. In the words of Morris, he’s just “that kind of guy.”
