For the second-straight season, buzz about trading T.J. Watt came out of the end of an unsuccessful Pittsburgh Steelers campaign. Watt squashed any notion of wanting to play somewhere else in the hopes of winning a playoff game, something he’s still yet to do across his first eight NFL seasons. Now, team president Art Rooney II is singing the same tune. He’s hoping to re-sign Watt, not trade him.
Meeting with reporters Monday, Rooney expressed hope of keeping Watt in Pittsburgh for the long haul.
“That’s something we want to look at this offseason,” Rooney said of a possible Watt extension, per The Athletic’s Mike DeFabo. “T.J. has been one of the foundations of the defense for quite a number of years now. And certainly hope we can have T.J. for the future, beyond this year.”
Watt is heading into the final year of the mega-extension he signed days before the 2021 season began. A new deal will keep him as one of the highest-paid players in the league and potentially again the highest-paid defender as was the case on his current four-year, $112 million deal. That contract was a complicated and messy one, taking longer than even Watt had hoped, largely due to the team breaking precedent of guaranteeing money past the first year. Until Watt, it wasn’t something the Steelers did for non-quarterbacks.
Now that the seal has been broken, an extension this time around could be easier, especially if Watt remains the highest-paid player at his position, the team’s new exception that’s applied to Watt and FS Minkah Fitzpatrick. Currently, Watt is the fourth-highest paid EDGE rusher on a yearly basis behind Nick Bosa, Josh Hines-Allen, and Brian Burns.
Watt is coming off another strong season though not quite as good as his previous years. His 11.5 sacks would be a career season for most players but were his lowest in a non-injury year since his rookie campaign. Including playoffs, he also went sack-less in his final four games, the longest drought of his career. Still, he led the league with six forced fumbles, made his seventh Pro Bowl, second-team All-Pro, and is an NFL Defensive Player of the Year Finalist.
With Watt turning 31 next August, age will be more of a factor in a long-term deal than it was before. But it doesn’t seem to be a barrier to Rooney and the Steelers wanting to sign Watt to at least one more extension in the hopes of striking the right balance of offensive and defensive firepower to make a playoff run.
