T.J. Watt led the NFL in sacks every season he was healthy from 2020 to 2023. It was only a matter of time before opposing offensive coordinators made him the centerpiece of their game plans — and by the end of 2024, it started to pay off. Now, Watt is spending his offseason preparing his next countermove in the ongoing chess match to reclaim his dominance.
“I think the biggest thing is self-reflection,” Watt told Ian Rapoport and Steve Smith on NFL Network’s Inside Training Camp Live. “Looking at each and every game that I possibly can…Let me see all the chips from the last three years and let me see how I’ve been attacking them, things I’ve done differently. The ways that teams have attacked me differently.”
For a player of Watt’s caliber, self-scouting is one of the most powerful tools available. He knows he’s the focus of every offensive game plan — so the challenge becomes how to break his own tendencies and make himself less predictable.
One way he’s doing that? Moving his alignment before the snap. He’s played the overwhelming majority of his career snaps on the left side of the defense. Now, they are lining him up on the right or even in the middle at times.
Watt was, by far, the most-chipped pass rusher in the league according to data from Pro Football Focus. They stopped publishing the data at Week 14 last year, but Watt was chipped 146 times (32.74 percent), with Myles Garrett a distant second getting chipped 90 times (26.16 percent).
Moving him around will help, but so will the improved talent around him. It won’t be so easy to focus on Watt if Alex Highsmith is healthy and posting double-digit sacks on the other side. But perhaps the most important is how rookie first-round DT Derrick Harmon can help his cause.
“We have a young guy in Derrick Harmon who’s gonna be next to me this season,” Watt said. “So I’m able to kind of sit down with him and talk about pass rush games and ways to attack how offenses are gonna block us.”
Larry Ogunjobi hasn’t been very effective for the past few seasons in Pittsburgh. A first-round talent like Harmon, who led all of college football in interior DL pressures last season, should make life easier on Watt (and vice versa).
Just because Watt signed a record-breaking contract that will set him and the next few generations of his family up for life, doesn’t mean he is taking his foot off the gas pedal.
If anything, he seems more motivated than ever to gain a winning edge.
