Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt is a true game-wrecker, the elite of the elite when it comes to the best defensive players in the NFL. There is no denying that.
In recent weeks, though, he’s been rather quiet. Teams have figured out how to game plan against him, whether that’s chipping him with a tight end or a running back, sliding help in his direction, or getting the ball out quick in the passing game. Very rarely does Watt see a clean one-on-one rep in games now, which is a credit to opposing coaching staffs.
Now, it’s time for Watt’s defensive coaching staff to help him out.
Since playing four snaps at right outside linebacker in their Week 8 Monday Night Football win over the New York Giants, the Steelers have gone in the opposite direction as far as moving Watt around the formation. On Thursday night against the Cleveland Browns, in which Watt was largely invisible, he played just two snap outside of his usual position on the left side of the defense.
Two snaps elsewhere. Here’s one of those plays. It came on a 4th and 1 from the Steelers’ 16-yard line with Watt lined up in a four-point stance in the A-gap. You can’t make it up.
Outside of that play and one other in which he was listed as lining up at LILB, Watt played 54 of his 56 snaps against the Browns as either the true LOLB, or the LEO, spacing himself further out wide to try and negate the chip.
That’s been the case since the Week 8 switch against the Giants. Since that win over New York in which he swapped sides with Alex Highsmith for four snaps — one of which led directly to a Highsmith sack — the Steelers haven’t done it since. Not once.
That’s poor coaching and planning.
It’s not as if Watt is unfamiliar with the right side of the formation. He played there as a rookie. He’s obviously much, much better on the left side, but he can play on the right side and move around to take advantage of some matchups and keep offenses off balance. Guys like Highsmith and Nick Herbig can play the left side, too, as they came up as backups and had to learn both spots.
Same for veteran Preston Smith, who has filled in on both sides when rotated in.
After the Giants game, Highsmith said that switching sides was something the Steelers were trying to work on.
“Just to get some of those chips off of T.J.,” Highsmith told reporters, according to video via the Steelers’ YouTube page.“ But I think we just both gotta work on our rushes from the other side in doing that. I think it was effective ’cause it threw ’em off a little bit and so it’s something we just gotta keep working on.”
Even defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said something similar in the days following the win over the Giants.
“We are always looking for ways to try to free T.J. up and try to throw off the blocking scheme of the other people. And so, that was worked out in the d-line room and those guys had a good plan in terms of when to move them, how we were gonna move them,” Austin told reporters, according to audio provided by the team. “And I think that was part of the thing that happened at that, as we got in the latter part of the game, he had been moving enough, and so it caused them just enough confusion where they left them one-on-on. And you know, when T.J. has an opportunity one-on-one, we like our odds in those things.
“And so we’ll see how it works moving forward, if we’re gonna continue in that vein. But I think the biggest thing is it’s on tape and people know that he’s not a stagnant target.”
Those words from Austin ring hollow now. The Steelers have aligned Watt at a different position just three times since doing so against the Giants. None of those three have come at ROLB.
Other teams are successful moving their top pass rushers around the formation, giving guys different looks and opposing offenses more to game plan against. The Steelers saw that up close Thursday night against the Browns as Cleveland moved Myles Garrett all over the formation with great success.
Garrett played 10 snaps on the left side of the Browns’ defense compared to 43 on the right side. It doesn’t have to be a huge number in which he changes sides but just give teams something to think about. One of Garrett’s three sacks came rushing from the left side and winning inside on a stunt.
Watt did state in July 2023 that rushing from the opposite side is like trying to write with a different hand, that the movements are all different. That much is true. But moving him around and giving different looks to offenses a handful of times could give him the edge he needs to create more splash plays.
It’s not asking him to learn an entirely different position or abandon the left side entirely. But the Steelers’ coaching staff has to do something moving forward to free up Watt from the constant chips, double teams and slides, because right now opponents are having a great deal of success as Watt is, well, a stagnant target on the left side of the Steelers’ defensive formation.
