Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers have handled the biggest question of the offseason by signing QB Aaron Rodgers, the attention turns to T.J. Watt. He skipped out on voluntary OTAs, to nobody’s surprise. But when the Steelers convened on Tuesday for the start of mandatory minicamp, their star pass rusher was not there. And according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Watt won’t be showing up at any point during the three days of practice.
Schefter’s ESPN co-worker, Brooke Pryor, thinks that things are bumpy between the organization and T.J. Watt. She pointed at the infamous Instagram peace-sign post by Watt earlier this offseason as another sign of trouble. The last time the Steelers and Watt were in a contract negotiation, Watt adopted the hold-in approach, appearing but not practicing. He’s not doing that this time, at least not for minicamp.
But not everyone thinks the discussions between the Steelers and Watt are bad. On Tuesday’s episode of The Insiders, Mike Garafolo talked about his sense of the ongoing negotiations.
“I don’t feel that this one is contentious,” said Garafolo. “If a player misses mandatory minicamp over the next couple days, you don’t have to fine a player. We’ll see what the Steelers wind up doing on this one. I know that they feel really good about the talks that they’ve had and the offers that they’ve made… Mike Tomlin has the belief that T.J. Watt is gonna be just fine working away from the facility, so they’re not stressing about that part of it. If there was a pressure point right now, and the start of training camp seems like it’s a pressure point, I feel like this thing would get done. And it will get done at some point.”
Since Watt is under contract, the Steelers do have the ability to fine him under the NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. If he misses all three days, and the Steelers choose to fine him for each day missed, the total would come to just over $100,000.
Whether the Steelers fine T.J. Watt for missing mandatory minicamp or not may be the best sign of how negotiations are going. If general manager Omar Khan feels like things are moving in the right direction, as Garafolo thinks, he might not fine Watt. Why upset negotiations if they’re progressing well?
But if talks have gone south, as Pryor suggests, the Steelers may opt to fine T.J. Watt to exert some pressure. But head coach Mike Tomlin seems unconcerned, despite this not being his ideal situation. He believes that both sides want to get some sort of a deal to keep Watt in Pittsburgh.
And when two sides want a deal to get done, they’ll likely get the deal done.
