The Pittsburgh Steelers and T.J. Watt reached a contract extension before training camp, and Mike Tomlin was a driving force. That’s not unusual for a head coach, especially one who prefers to be hands-on as often as possible. And Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette believes he helped direct the team to finish this deal early this time.
“Mike Tomlin did not want any more ‘distractions’ heading into training camp. That’s the last one; it’s taken care of”, Dulac said on the DVE Morning Show about T.J. Watt’s contract negotiations. “Mike Tomlin’s feeling all along was, ‘get that deal done. Pay him. Just get the deal done’. He doesn’t control the purse strings, but he can certainly push them in a certain direction. Yeah, I think that was definitely part of it”.
The last time the Steelers and T.J. Watt negotiated, it went down to the wire. He didn’t participate in training camp practices at all, though he worked alone off to the side. This time, Watt actually skipped mandatory minicamp, raising the stakes in the process. Mike Tomlin obviously didn’t want speculation about his presence or absence to be an issue this time.
“They go into camp not wondering, ‘Is T.J. gonna be here? Is he not gonna be there? Is his deal gonna get done?’”, Dulac said about Tomlin and company. “They knew the deal would get done, but they just didn’t want a lot of headbutting going on during the process”.
The Steelers made Watt the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history, giving him a three-year, $123 million contract extension. Beat writers like to be pedantic and call it a new four-year contract with a lower APY. That, of course, ignores the reality of how every other contract extension is framed, including Myles Garrett’s.
They point out Watt is still behind Garrett in terms of APY, ignoring the fact that Garrett’s contract, if framed in the same contract, would have had a lower APY. Garrett had two years remaining under his previous contract at roughly $45 million. Now he is under contract for six years with another $160 million on top of that. So is it a new six-year, $205 million contract at roughly $34.2 million APY? Or are we going to do what everybody else does and look at new money? But I’m digressing.
While the Steelers’ last negotiation with T.J. Watt did not grow contentious, Mike Tomlin wanted to avoid any potential unpleasantries. Now everybody can arrive to camp fresh and happy and ready to go, at least in theory.
Perhaps this is part of the “all in” theory, or perhaps not. Dulac, either way, believes Tomlin played a role in guiding the Steelers to an early resolution with Watt. “I think there’s a lot of truth in that”, he said. “Let’s go forward and let’s start from the first day of camp and not have to worry about anything else”. Not that there isn’t always something else to worry, or if there isn’t, there will be soon.
