The Pittsburgh Steelers have resigned T.J. Watt to a 3-year contract extension worth $144.05, including $108 million in guarantees. The deal makes T.J. Watt the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history and will keep him in Pittsburgh through the 2028 season.
- Smart Steelers observers expected this deal to get done.
- Speculators mused about chances of a long-term hold out or even a trade.
Score one for the Smart Steelers observers.
The Steelers locker room has voted T.J. Watt the team MVP a record five times. They did it after the 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024 seasons. Minkah Fitzpatrick won the award in 2022 – when Watt missed close to half of the season with injuries.
T.J. Watt also won NFL defensive player of the year award in 2021. Clearly, this is someone Art Rooney II, Mike Tomlin and Omar Khan are wise to keep in the Steel City.
T.J. Watt ties the NFL sack record. Photo Credit: Karl Roser, Steelers.com
Why Watt is Worth It
T.J. Watt could retire today and remain a surefire Hall of Famer. With 121 games under his belt he has 108 sacks. For comparisons sake, James Harrison who is third on the list, had 80.5 in 177 career games.
- Yet, despite his resume, some have suggested that resigning T.J. Watt was unwise.
They point to the overall decline in sack production in edge rushers who are over 30, Watt will turn 31 this year. Others point to the steep drop that his brother J.J. Watt experienced after age 29 and 8 years in the league – T.J. has just played his final year.
- And they’ll also point to Watt’s own injury history.
He missed much of the first half of 2022 with injuries and took several games to find his rhythm when he returned. Watt remained healthy through the 2023 season, only to get injured in the regular season finale against Baltimore – he missed the playoffs and the Steelers missed him in that loss to the Bills. And in 2024 Watt never missed again, but did play much of the later season with an undisclosed injury that limited his effectiveness.
- Injury is a risk with all NFL contracts and that risk increases with age.
- And Father Time remains undefeated in the race between athletic ability and age
If the Steelers had any doubts about resigning T.J. Watt (they didn’t), perhaps the story of another 31 year old linebacker is most instructive. During the 1993 off season Dan Rooney and Tom Donahoe made an under the radar signing of a 31 year old from the Los Angeles Rams.
Kevin Greene sacks Stan Humphries in 1993. Photo Credit: AP, via al.com
For a short time he held the distinction of having signed the largest contract in Steelers history (Greg Lloyd one-upped him a few weeks later.) His name was Kevin Greene, and Greene along with Greg Lloyd transformed Pittsburgh into Blitzburgh.
Greene played 3 years, and during the 1995 season, went as far as predicting his own departure in the Steelers Digest, explaining that Jason Gildon was ready. Indeed, Super Bowl XXX was Greene’s final game in Black and Gold.
The Steelers let Greene walk because they’d groomed Gildon as a replacement – in the pre-Heinz Field days the Steelers had to be very targeted with their salary cap dollars. But that wasn’t the only reason.
The other was that, giving a large contract to a then 34 year old outside linebacker seemed insane.
Yet Kevin Greene had the last laugh, adding another 52 sacks (or one less than Lloyd’s career total) in four seasons with the Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers.
- This scribe won’t be surprised if T.J. Watt follows in Kevin Greene’s footsteps.
But the difference will be that Watt will do so in Pittsburgh.
