NFL quarterbacks now have to worry about T.J. Watt too

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Retired NFL defensive end Stephen White shows us how T.J. Watt is sacking his way out of his brother’s shadow.

You know Watt is leading the league in sacks, right?

No, not that one. The other one.

Well, I guess technically it applies to both of them, but whatever.

It’s true that J.J. Watt has been balling this season, and he earned my Hoss Of The Week honors a couple weeks ago. As I said at the time, he looks like he is rounding back into All-Pro form.

I’m not talking about J.J. this time, however,

This time, I’m talking about his “little” brother, T.J. who, like J.J., has already notched six sacks in the first five games of this season. I don’t know what the Watts were feeding their kids growing up, but they ought to package whatever it was and sell it on Amazon.

The scary thing is T.J., at least statistically, might actually end up being more productive than his big brother over their first two years in the NFL if he keeps up this pace. You may have forgotten since its been awhile, but J.J. went from five and a half sacks his first season to 20.5 sacks his second season which was phenomenal.

T.J. had seven sacks in his rookie campaign last season, and, if he stays healthy, he’s on track to notch close to 20 sacks this year. That may be shocking to some of you, but no matter what you’ve heard, this kid is very much legit. I will tell you something else, the kid looked a lot like his older sibling at times rushing the passer on Sunday. In fact, allow me to explain some of the similarities to you while I break down those sacks.

You can’t stop Watt with hope

The first came on the second play of the second quarter, with the Steelers up 13-0. The Falcons had a first-and-10 at their own 37-yard line . They decided to try to take a shot down the field, to throw the ball to Calvin Ridley on a late breaking skinny post. They sent three receivers out and kept the tight end and running back in to block after they carried out their play fakes to insure that Ryan would have enough time to let the route develop.

The tight end, Logan Paulson, went in zig-zag motion before the ball was snapped ended up lined up across from Watt. The running back, Tevin Coleman, was lined up in the shotgun on the opposite side of the center from Paulson.

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Since it was a play action pass, Coleman was supposed to help the right tackle, Ryan Schraeder, with any edge rusher or any blitzes off the edge to that side. Paulson was supposed to pass block the edge rusher to left tackle Jake Matthews’ side, because Matthews had to block down inside to sell the split zone look. With Coleman and Paulson helping out on the edges, that gave Ryan seven blockers protecting him, which is usually more than enough.

That all sounds good on paper, no doubt, but its a different deal when you actually have to block somebody. Especially when there is a blitz involved.

Pittsburgh did indeed blitz, sending Mike Hilton, who was lined up on the slot receiver outside of Watt, off the edge to get some quick pressure in Ryan’s face. With Hilton the edge rusher, the rest of the line, including Watt, stunted to their right to even up the pass rush lanes. Hilton came screaming off the corner and blew right by Schraeder’s fake run block attempt with the quickness. Coleman was just barely able to get across the formation to block Hilton after carrying out the play fake. By the time he made contact, Hilton came close enough to spook Ryan.

Ryan knew it would take a little while for Ridley to get open, but the payoff was potentially a long touchdown and the lead, so he tried to move around in the pocket to buy himself some time once he felt Hilton closing on him.

Unfortunately for Ryan, he jumped out of the frying pan and right into the fryer.

Falcons right guard Brandon Fusco was kind of set up to fail on this play from the start. Initially, he had Stephon Tuitt lined up on him before the snap, a a load in his own right. Fusco had to try to double team Tuitt with the center, Alex Mack, and keep him at the line of scrimmage so that Ryan would be able to step into the deep throw.

Fusco was setting so heavy in anticipation of Tuitt that when Tuitt stunted inside, it took Fusco a half a second to realize that his assignment had changed. If a defensive tackle stunted inside on a zone run, the offensive guard would normally just keep working outside and let the center take the defensive tackle. Fusco had to fan outside and look for work. It didn’t take him long to find it as Watt was bearing down on him.

For whatever reason it looked like Fusco decided to try to keep up the facade and give a run block look to Watt instead of setting back to pass block. That didn’t work out too well for him.

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As soon as Watt he saw Ryan drop back to pass, T.J. executed a J.J.-like arm over to get a step past Fusco. At that point Fusco only had two real options, neither of them good. He could’ve just tackled Watt and hoped the refs didn’t call it, but it would have been obvious AF. Or, he could have accepted his fate, let Watt get by him and hope Ryan made the pass.

Fusco went with option B. I have to point out that when you have to rely on hope while playing football, more than likely things are not going to go your way.

With Fusco letting go, Watt dropped his pad level and made a hard right turn right at Ryan’s legs. Just when it looked like Ryan was going to be able to set his feet and uncork that deep ball to Ridley, Watt wrapped him up and took him down for a 4-yard loss.

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He couldn’t have known it at the time, but it was very fortunate for Watt and his teammates that he was able to get pressure on that play. At the very moment he did, the corner covering Ridley was literally falling down and the single high safety was outside the hashmark on the other side of the field.

Yeah ...

T.J. can fly too

Later on in the second quarter, with just under six minutes left in the first half, Atlanta found themselves down 13-7, but knocking on the door inside the red zone with a first-and-10 at the Pittsburgh 14. The Steelers needed somebody to make a play to slow them down, and Watt was more than happy to oblige.

The Falcons lined up in a different formation that time, but their blocking scheme was very similar to what they did when Watt got that first sack. This time, however, Ryan was under center, and the back, Devonta Freeman, was lined up in the dot behind him.

Instead of trying to take a shot, the Falcons were trying to run a bootleg to Ryan’s left this time. Another difference in the two plays is that the Steelers did not blitz. Instead, Watt was the edge rusher, and that dude flew around the corner on the snap.

T.J.’s explosive get off on that play reminded me a whole lot of J.J.’s explosive get off on a sack I wrote about in his Hoss column. I don’t know if T.J. had found a snap key like J.J. did, but he shot up the field past Schraeder’s fake run block so fast with a dent move that Schraeder barely laid a hand on him. He was in the backfield so quickly that Freeman, who tried to carry out the run fake before trying to block, wasn’t able to lay a hand on him at all.

Ryan certainly isn’t the worst athlete at quarterback in the league, but he also isn’t close to the best. He didn’t stand a chance of getting the pass off before Watt was able to hawk him down. It literally only took Watt five steps — yes, I counted them — from the moment he passed Freeman to the moment he landed on Ryan, who evidently decided to fall down on his own rather than run the risk of getting hammered by Watt from behind.

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The loss of 9 yards helped to get the Falcons off schedule. They had to settle for a field goal three plays later.

Don’t let your guard down

Watt’s third and final sack came late in the fourth quarter when Pittsburgh already had the game well in hand, up 34-17. I imagine at that point Atlanta was just trying to get a positive drive or two to try to get some momentum heading into Week 6.

The lesson they learned the hard was is you can not let your guard down, not even for a second, when one of those Watt boys are still in the game.

This was the play when T.J. looked the most like J.J. There wasn’t any play action fake this time around. No fake run blocking, either. The Falcons were lined up in a regular shotgun formation. Schraeder was going to have to block Watt straight up all by his lonesome.

Watt came off like a speed rush for a few steps, but then he kind of flailed his arm inside as if he was going to try a hump move. Instead of a hump move, Watt came through with a big dip and rip, and he was able to duck under Schraeder’s punch.

I see J.J. use that exact move several times a week, and it worked just as well for T.J. as I’ve seen it work for J.J. on that play. Schraeder turned his hips perpendicular to the line of scrimmage to try to catch up with Watt’s speed, but all it actually did was open the door to give Watt a straight line to Ryan.

Ryan felt Watt stalking him from behind and he tried to get away, but once again Ryan’s efforts were ultimately futile. This time, however, Ryan made a huge mistake and didn’t get on the ground immediately like he did with the second sack. Watt made Ryan pay for that error, hitting Ryan’s right arm and dislodging the football. The ball ended up rolling backward into the end zone where Watt’s teammate, L.J. Fort, was able to recover the fumble before the ball went out of the back of end zone.

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With that score the Steelers were able to rub just a little more salt in the Falcons’ wounds before the end of the game.

Sidenote: Anybody out there know if there has ever been a time before now when a pair of brothers were tied for the league lead in a major statistical category this late into the season?

Amazon. I’m just saying!

Watt’s performance on Sunday was exceptional. The more I see of him, the more I believe at some point he will put up sack numbers just like his big brother. Maybe even be this season. I know that because he has had two games in which he had three sacks and three games with no sacks at all. That might make you question if he is consistent enough to have that kind of production, especially if you didn’t actually watch the games. But, in my experience, sacks tend to come in bunches. We would all love to see a guy to get sacks every week, but that just isn’t realistic, even the most dominant pass rushers.

What matters more than just the sheer statistics, anyway, is how a guy plays week after week after week.

It would be one thing if Watt was just having quarterbacks chased to him or getting sacks on fluke plays. Nah, bruh/sis, he is working his ass off to get pressure every game. Some of them just so happen to end with the quarterback on the ground with the ball in his hands.

Right now I see Watt as a guy who can win one-on-one matchups every week and even some matchups where the primary blocker gets help with chips and double teams (if you notice on his first sack the center was trying to help, but he was just too late). That’s why I feel like if he can stay healthy, the sky is the limit for him. I know J.J. justifiably casts a long shadow, but there is a very good chance that T.J. will be casting a nice sized one himself by the end of this season.

For now, what I know for sure is that with his three sacks, two tackles for a loss, two pressures and three other tackles, Trent Jordan Watt showed that he is a pass rusher to be feared every bit as much as his more accomplished brother. For his efforts he earned the first Hoss Of The Week award of his career. I’d be willing to bet it won’t be his last.