Cincinnati Bengals fans were not pleased with how Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt rolled on Joe Burrow’s leg after his strip sack in Sunday’s 44-38 win. Just check out the comments in response to NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger’s breakdown of the play, where he did not mentioned the “gator roll.”
“Dirty ass player. He’s a Steeler what do you expect?” one Bengals fan wrote on X.
Another fan wrote, “Nothing about the dirty ankle roll?”
J.J. Watt defended his brother T.J. on the Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday. He thinks Bengals fans are caught in their feelings.
J.J. provided to a link to one Bengals fan on Seattle Seahawks tackling drill, where players are taught to roll.
“There’s some idiots out there and that’s just the fact of life,” J.J. Watt said. “That’s the way NFL players are taught to tackle to protect themselves and the person they are tackling. If you want to cry about it that’s your own problem. Go play a sport and try it yourself and see what it’s actually like on the field, instead of siting behind your computer in your basement and complaining about it.”
Watt had a banner day on Sunday — recording three tackles, two sacks, and a forced fumble. Nick Herbig also had a game-changing strip sack on Burrow. Herbig’s strip sack took 2:31 seconds from sack to fumble, per Next Gen Stats. That’s the third-fastest sack in the league this season. It was also Herbig’s third straight game with a forced fumble.
Herbig’s four forced fumbles are tied for second-most in the NFL this season, behind only teammate T.J. Watt’s five. He credits Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin for building a defensive culture in Pittsburgh, which has laid the foundation for his success.
“(T.J. Watt) leads the league in forced fumbles since he’s been in the league,” Herbig said. “That’s the culture that Coach Tomlin has built and these guys have laid the foundation for younger guys like me.”