T.J. Watt and Myles Garrett are unquestionably two of the greatest pass rushers of our generation. Drafted in the same round in the same year, they have dominated the league since that time—sometimes one more ahead than the other. Garrett surged ahead last Thursday on the same field as Watt for 2024, however. And he didn’t pass up the opportunity to claim bragging rights.
It all started after the 2023 regular season when Myles Garrett won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award. Almost always a runner-up but having led the league in sacks, T.J. Watt vaguely aired his frustration. In a simple message on Twitter, he said that it was nothing he wasn’t already used to.
All of a sudden, that comment resurfaced with Browns reporters asking Garrett about it, and he clearly took umbrage. He said Watt shouldn’t have felt two ways about Garrett receiving the award rather than him. For his part, Watt had little to say before or after the game, during which he had a very low impact and Garrett dominated.
But Joe Starkey, columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and talk show host on 93.7 The Fan, thinks he should say more. “In this game, he talked the talk and then he backed it up, and he was the best player on the field”, he said. “I actually like that there’s something brewing, and I wish T.J. [Watt] would pipe back. I do. I wish he would snap up into the conversation here”.
Starkey went on to say that Watt is “very guarded to never say anything wrong. Except he did come out on social media when Garrett won the award. So say it! Back it up! Let’s go. Now ‘I’m the guy’, because Garrett’s saying it”.
Talented as he is, T.J. Watt is very used to being “the guy”. It is rare that he isn’t the best defender in a stadium, but he certainly was not last Thursday. With a three-sack, forced-fumble performance, Myles Garrett was. And Garrett let everyone know—admittedly after the fact, which is much easier. For Starkey, it’s time for Watt to stop playing the Boy Scout.
“If you’re T.J. [Watt], come back. Or don’t go on social media when he wins the award and basically say something basically passive-aggressively, ‘I’m used to it’”, he said. “You want to talk and snap back and say you’re the guy, then say it. You want to play the role of ‘I don’t talk like that, I don’t do stuff like that’, then do that. Be one or the other, I say, for him”.
Personally, I didn’t have any problem with T.J. Watt’s original tweet, and I didn’t view it as a direct slight against Myles Garrett. Rather, it was the culmination of years of pent-up frustration, of continually being handed second place. In years gone by, he would have three or four Defensive Player of the Year award trophies. But we can’t go by statistics anymore, and that will frustrate the players who put up the statistics most consistently.
Beyond that, I have no particular feelings about what Watt should or should not say. I’m sure he does believe he is better than Garrett. I’m sure a lot of edge rushers believe they’re the best edge rushers. And many cornerbacks believe they’re the best cornerback. Belief in yourself is critical to success. Beyond drama, I don’t see what we stand to gain by two people stating their biased opinions.
But it sure would be interesting to hear T.J. Watt run his mouth off in the media.
