The Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t fared well over the years without T.J. Watt in the lineup. When he’s been out injured, the Steelers have a 1-11 record, including the postseason. Fortunately, Watt will be available this week, but will he be fully healthy?
He rolled his ankle last week, resulting in a low-ankle sprain. His status was in question early in the week, but he practiced fully on Thursday with no injury designation. One Steelers insider thinks it could be the perfect opportunity to show off the depth at the outside linebacker position.
“Obviously, any sprained ankle, you’re gonna be somewhat limited,” Fittipaldo said via 93.7 The Fan’s PM Team. “The difficult thing for the Steelers and for T.J. is they gotta turn around and play the Chiefs in four days, so I wouldn’t be surprised if T.J. is maybe subbed in and out a little bit. You got Nick Herbig, you got Preston Smith. This is a perfect time to take advantage of that depth and see if they can get through this without T.J. having to play his normal workload.”
Despite having the best depth situation at OLB of Watt’s entire career, he is currently tied for a career-high 88 percent of the total defensive snaps. Much of that is due to various injuries to Alex Highsmith and Nick Herbig this year, but they have also been hesitant to take him off the field.
You can’t blame them — he’s T.J. Watt. He needs to be on the field as much as possible, but there’s a fine line to walk with making sure his body can withstand the rigors of an entire season and hopefully a playoff run.
Nick Herbig played 30 snaps against the Eagles, and 11 came on the final drive after Watt was hurt. It was a similar story for Preston Smith, with eight of his 28 snaps coming after Watt’s injury. It would be prudent to rotate them significantly more to give Watt a lighter workload. They have another game just four days later.
Herbig and Smith are plenty capable of making an impact with additional snaps. Herbig has been one of the best OLBs in the league this season on a per-snap basis.
At the same time, Watt has always been a significant weapon against the Ravens. He’s logged 17 sacks, 22 tackles for loss, four forced fumbles, and 33 QB hits in 15 games against the Ravens. It’s an important game with the AFC North crown on the line for the Steelers. Watt scoffed at the idea of working on a snap count in an interview this week but said if that’s the only thing he can do, he’ll take what he can get.
They need to approach the division of labor thoughtfully, given all of these factors. If they win against the Ravens and secure the division, they will have less to gain over the last two weeks of the regular season.
