Although T.J. Watt had a good year, 2024 was something of a down season for the star edge rusher with 11.5 sacks. The Pittsburgh Steelers still made him the highest-paid non-quarterback at the time this offseason, but so far Watt has yet to record a sack in 2025. Analyst Dan Hanzus is starting to worry after two relatively quiet games from the 2021 NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
“I thought T.J. Watt was largely invisible against the Jets,” Hanzus said Monday on his Heed The Call podcast. “He had a couple of plays, but it wasn’t the T.J. Watt experience you expect. And was he quiet again this game? It doesn’t seem like they’re getting what they expect from their most important player right now.”
The Steelers were not short on confidence heading into Sunday against the visiting Seattle Seahawks. Watt as well as Juan Thornhill proclaimed that they expected the issues against the run to be fixed. Lo and behold, they absolutely were not. Once again, the Steelers allowed themselves to be gashed in the run game, with Kenneth Walker III rushing for over eight yards per carry.
Statistically speaking, it has been a relatively quiet start to the year for Watt. Through two games he has nine combined tackles. Two of them were for a loss, but each came against the Jets in Week 1. Watt has played 106 snaps through these two games and doesn’t have a sack, or even a QB pressure, to his name.
To be fair, he hasn’t had it the easiest. The Steelers’ entire defensive front has struggled, and they suffered attrition there on Sunday with Alex Highsmith and Isaiahh Loudermilk each going down in the first half with ankle injuries. As a result, Watt received extra attention, which did free up players like Jack Sawyer, who credited Watt for helping him notch his first career sack on Sunday.
Still, there is reason to worry. Watt is now above the $40 million per year threshold, and fans are going to want to see production justify that number. Not recording a pressure through two games isn’t a great start, to say the least.
T.J. Watt hasn’t played poorly by any measure. However, in hard-fought games like the one the Steelers lost on Sunday, they typically rely on him to come up with clutch plays. He hasn’t done so through two weeks, and that’s causing Hanzus to worry a bit.
