Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt had his least productive full season sack-wise since his rookie season, only totaling 11.5 sacks for the Steelers this season. Watt’s a known commodity as a game-wrecker, and it seemed weekly opposing offensive coordinators and head coaches were talking about ways to try to neutralize his impact. Watt has almost exclusively been rushing from the left side for the past few seasons, and on Monday, he said he’s open to moving around more on defense to prevent teams from specifically keying on him on one side and giving the offense different looks.
On The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday, his brother, former NFL DE J.J. Watt, endorsed the idea of his brother moving around on defense to prevent teams from throwing bodies at him as much to try and slow him down.
“Like he talked about, I do think that he knows that moving around there could be a way to get some of these chips, some of these double teams. There’s things that can be done here to try and minimize that because it’s very clear that there is heavy, heavy keying on where he’s gonna be and just throwing a significant number of bodies at him and putting obstacles in the way. So moving around certainly does help that and I think it’s something he just recently said he’s more open to in the future and he’s gonna work on.”
A lot of the premier EDGE rushers in the league will switch sides to prevent themselves from being chipped or double-teamed as often, but the overwhelming number of T.J.’s snaps came from the left side. He played less than 20 snaps lined up on the right this season, but it’s something he’s going to look to do more to try and make more of an impact and neutralize the offense’s attempts to slow him down.
While J.J. was usually on the defensive line, he moved around a bit during his career, and T.J. could follow suit as teams look to specifically gameplan against him, and did so effectively at times this season. While he was also dealing with a thumb injury and possibly other injuries, including an ankle injury he suffered in Week 15, Watt didn’t register a stat in Pittsburgh’s Wild Card Round loss to the Baltimore Ravens and in the team’s Week 18 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. It’s rare to see him fail to impact the box score, but opponents did a good job bringing help and not letting him make an impact down the stretch.
Moving around more and throwing different looks at the defense could help Watt return to form as the premier pass rusher in the NFL, and we’ll see if it’s something he and the Steelers actually implement next season, but it sounds as if that might be the case.
