Some have questioned the past few seasons for Pittsburgh Steelers edge rusher TJ Watt.
Watt has typically been one of the best players in the NFL, and proved that throughout the 2021 and 2023 seasons, among other years. However, 2023 and 2021 were by far the two best seasons of his career, posting 19 sacks in 2023 and 22.5 in 2021.
It's tough to ever get that type of production in every season, no matter how good a player is. However, Watt finished with seven sacks a year ago, and there were seemingly more questions than answers about an edge rusher who many viewed as one of the best, if not the best, in the world just a few months prior.
As always, the problem with Watt is his tendency to leave the field at times. He's done a bit better of a job with that over the past few years, but he's played through a lot of injuries, and it's possible that his lack of production at times is due to them.
However, a former Steelers player believes that there are other reasons for that, suggesting that the scheme is a part of the larger picture.
"When that scheme is so heavily dependent on the edge rushers to get home -- to have this boom or bust mentality, like, 'Hey, TJ, we need you to get home. TJ get a sack-fumble for us, TJ do this, TJ do that.' To me, playing there for three years, I felt like the Steelers were so reliant on the front four. When you do that, teams can scheme very easily to isolate those guys and create mismatches for them," Breiden Fehoko said, H/T Steelers Nation.
"I wanna see TJ move around more. I don't wanna see them just isolate TJ to just his side. When you do that, offenses can tee off on him; they can send a chipper. I love to see TJ even line up over a center, put TJ in a three-tech, do some three-man loop stunts inside. All of those things you can do, that I felt like Pittsburgh did not tap into because of the traditional mindset, because it's been so successful for a long time, but the game is evolving," Fehoko said.
Players in the NFL are often only as good as the schemes they play in, unless they're just super freak defensive and offensive guys.
Watt is obviously one of those guys, considering the sack numbers and other metrics we've seen throughout the last nine years, though it's interesting to think about how good he could be if the scheme were really catered toward him.