Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt had a “down” year and still earned second-team All-Pro honors. The whole has even got him talking about moving around more next year, which he doesn’t like to do. Yet, as teammate Cameron Heyward insists, Watt is the least of their problems. Even when he isn’t producing statistics, he is still positively contributing.
“T.J.’s not concerned with the stats. He’s concerned with winning”, Heyward said of Watt on Not Just Football. “He’s a team player, and he’s only concerned with trying to win the game. A stat line doesn’t say a lot. You can get lost in the shuffle if you think just because of a stat line that it prevents a team from winning”.
Over the Steelers’ final two games, T.J. Watt failed to record a single statistic. Not an assisted tackle, not a batted pass, not a recovered fumble, absolutely nothing. That doesn’t mean he was invisible on the field for the Steelers, though, Heyward insists. And he also seemed to imply that Watt was among the walking wounded.
“T.J.’s been out there trying to grind it through”, Heyward said, prefacing it by saying he won’t talk about guys’ injuries. “There are a lot of things we’ve got to improve on, and T.J. Watt’s not the problem. He’s part of the solution. Whatever the stat line or whatever it was over those last [games], that’s not the reason why we lost the game”.
For much of the 2024 season, Watt was the favorite to win the Defensive Player of the Year Award. While he never led the NFL in sacks, he did everything else, including a league-high six forced fumbles. People observed that teams were limiting him all season long, but he still found ways to make splash plays.
Those splash plays disappeared late in the season, though. Including the postseason, T.J. Watt has gone without a sack in four straight games for the first time in his career. He also only recorded one tackle for loss, one pass defensed, no forced fumbles, no interceptions, and just seven tackles.
Of course, his final stats still look good. In all, Watt recorded 11.5 sacks, 61 tackles, 19 for loss, 27 hits, six forced fumbles, and four passes defensed. It is a testament to his quality that such a year could be considered in any way below the line.
Still, the fact is that T.J. Watt isn’t a normal player. He is held to a higher standard, and he is compensated accordingly. The Steelers will likely once again make him the highest-paid defender in football this offseason, too. He is due a new extension, and they know they’re not better without him. Even if one can’t blame a skeptical fan who wonders how much he has left.
