J.J. Watt is the latest to weigh in on New York Giants RT Jermaine Eluemunor’s comments before and after facing T.J. Watt Monday night. Responding to Eluemunor’s postgame take that he largely handled Watt, saying he “didn’t do a damn thing” aside from Watt’s strip-sack and fumble recovery on the same play, J.J. took him to task.
“Besides all that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” Watt quipped when asked about those comments during his weekly Pat McAfee Show appearance. “I mean, what are we doing here, man? What are you doing? You gave up the strip-sack fumble that lost the game.”
Before the Steelers and Giants kicked off, Eluemunor said he wanted to be on “island” against Watt the entire game. But that certainly wasn’t the game plan. For most of the contest, Eluemunor had plenty of help from tight end and running back chips and slide protection.
Former NFL offensive lineman A.Q. Shipley agreed that it was a small island.
“I was like actually going in there like thinking, ‘Okay, he is gonna be on an island all day,” Shipley said. “Like 90 percent of it was slide to him with a chip. There was like four guys literally in the vicinity trying to affect T.J.”
In our breakdown of their true one-on-one matchups, Eluemunor won a handful of reps, but Watt got stronger late in the game. He picked up that sack and drew a holding call that negated a Giants third-down conversion.
The two were one-on-one for the biggest snap of the game, a third down with the Giants down eight in the fourth quarter and in Steelers’ territory after QB Russell Wilson’s lost fumble. Watt got the edge, ripped through Eluemunor, and knocked the ball out of QB Daniel Jones’ hands, recovering it to complete the turnover.
Watt finished the game with gaudy numbers. Seven tackles (two for a loss), two sacks, a forced fumble, and fumble recovery. Per our charting, he ended the game with seven pressures and was named AFC Defensive Player of the Week.
In a career defined by excelling in the game’s biggest moments, Watt again came up clutch, making Eluemunor’s comments all the more baffling.
“Before the game, the guy says, ‘I want to be on an island all alone with T.J,'” J.J. Watt said. “T.J. goes out there, has seven tackles, two sacks, forced fumble, strip sack, wins the game. Guy was on an island on the play. One-on-one on the island. That’s your job. On the game. On the line. Most important play of the entire game. You didn’t do it.”
J.J. gave T.J. credit for being gracious with his own postgame comments, though they were made before Eluemunor’s continued trash talk into Tuesday.
“He said, ‘Yes, I heard those comments, but I respect everybody in this league. Everybody’s job is hard. Everybody has a difficult job. He just wants to do his job.’ He was extremely kind about it. And even, I was like, ‘Oh wow, that was very mature of you. Good job.’ And then this guy, two days later, three days later comes out and says he locked him up all game. Well, no, you didn’t. You would’ve won the game if you locked him up.”
With the Steelers’ bye week, we likely won’t hear from T.J. Watt this week. And because he normally speaks with the media on Friday, this story will likely have run its course by that point.
It’s become a weekly watch to see what the opponent is saying about Watt. Most say the standard and expected things. He’s a great player, it’ll be a big matchup, we’ll put together a game plan for him. But Eluemunor has taken it to another level that’s turned a local story into a national one. A reminder that often the best thing to say after a loss you were partially responsible for is – nothing.
