Saunders: Steelers Defensive Scheme Let Down T.J. Watt
PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt ended the 2024 season about the worst way that a star player can: anonymously.
Watt, a six-time All-Pro and seven-time Pro Bowler, was essentially invisible in the Steelers’ playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens. In terms of box score statistics, he recorded none. Pro Football Focus credited him with four hurries — and also with two missed tackles.
Watt also recoded no defensive statistics against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 18. He did not have a sack or a quarterback hit in four straight games to close the 2024 season. The Steelers lost all of those games and they lost in the playoffs for the sixth consecutive game, with Watt going 0 for 5 in his career in the postseason.
“It’s tough to sit here, same time as last year, same time as it’s been in this scrum, same questions and I have the same answers,” Watt said during the team’s locker cleanout day on Monday.
“Obviously, I’m very frustrated with how things ended and that’s not just with the last game, that’s with the last month of football. It’s a collection of things and it starts with myself. I need to play better. We need to play better. It’s not one thing that needs to be fixed. It’s a lot of things. But it starts internally with myself. I need to play better in bigger moments. It’s gonna be a long offseason to have to sit with that.”
Watt is certainly right to take some of the responsibility for his downturn in productivity. But he shouldn’t shoulder the entirety of the blame.
Watt was chipped on the highest percentage of snaps of any player in the league this season. He did so while rushing 546 times as the Steelers’ left outside linebacker or defensive end and just eight times anywhere else. It’s a whole heck of a lot easier to chip or double team a player when you know exactly where they’re going to line up and exactly where they’re going to be rushing from.
Compare those numbers to the way the Cleveland Browns deploy Myles Garrett. Garrett rushed 362 times as a right defensive end, 83 times as a left defensive end, and also has 28 snaps where he moved around to various other spots on the defense. Watt had nine of those.
“Obviously, teams are playing certain ways: chips and helps and stuff like that, and getting the ball out quick,” Watt said. “I need to be more open to moving around more and trying to affect games as much as possible. You guys know I want to affect games more than anybody.”
Watt said that he doesn’t want to feel like he’s cherry picking where he gets to play and stepping in front of others at other positions. That’s valid coming from a teammate.
That’s where the Steelers coaching staff needed to step in. Playing Watt in the same spot every game, rushing with very little variety in terms of scheme and approach, is not what was best for the team. It’s not Watt being selfish about wanting to get his sacks. It’s about the Steelers being able to win football games. It shouldn’t have to take Watt asking to be moved to a different spot for it to happen. He shouldn’t have to feel badly about taking away someone else’s best chance to get a sack. The coaching staff should be doing it for him.
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“Alex [Highsmith] is a great rusher on the right side,” Watt said. “At times, he can be a better rusher at the right than I can be at the right. I don’t want to take away his natural rush instinct side for me to go to the right and not be as effective. … It’s just things where if I move around to help move the chip or create some indecision on where the chip goes, then I have to be more willing and able to do that, and I will.”
Watt can also be a bit stubborn and set in his ways. The left side has been productive for him over the years. But it’s clear that teams have found a way to be able to minimize him in predictable alignments. Even with the coaching staff asleep at the wheel, Watt now recognizes the problem on his own.
“I prefer the left, but at this point in my career, I want to be an impact player,” he said. “I don’t want to be schemed out of games. I want to be able to deliver the football in good field positions or take the football away, and it wasn’t a good enough year for myself when it comes to that.”
Watt is an incredibly detailed worker when it comes to breaking down film and finding tendencies. He will certainly figure out how to get himself free from the schematic difficulties teams threw his way in 2024. It just should’t have taken him to get to his offseason for someone in Pittsburgh to make that adjustment.
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