This Redditor Debunked Micah Parson’s Comments on T.J. Watt vs. TEN
At this point, if you’re a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and you’re active on social media, you’ve seen Micah Parson’s egregious comments implying that TJ Watt isn’t a top five pass rusher in the league.
To recap: Parsons appeared on The Zach Gelb Show on February 9th, 2024, the day after the NFL Honors Ceremony in which Myles Garrett was named the Defensive Player of the Year for the 2023 NFL season. Obviously, Garrett winning the award over TJ Watt was controversial, so during his appearance on the podcast, Parsons took an opportunity to defend Garrett. I have no issue with that; In fact, I think Steeler fans were a little harsh in some of their criticisms of the panel at the Associated Press, who voted on the award. Nonetheless, regardless of where your allegiances lie, you’re either trolling, or not paying attention if you say publicly that TJ Watt isn’t a top five pass rusher in the NFL; that’s where I take issue with Micah Parsons’ comments. Parsons also took his time on this platform to compare Garrett and Watt’s impact on the game, and cited their games against the Tennessee Titans as evidence that teams aren’t concerned about TJ Watt in games against the Steelers.
While discussing Garrett’s impact over that of Watt, Parsons said “...you look at the Titans game alone, and no offense, but TJ played the Titans. Did you see two tight ends following TJ Watt?” He continued: “...people can say whatever they want, but at the end of the day the film does not lie…like his presence is way more dominant than TJ Watt.”
First off, he’s wrong. In fact, the second thing I want to point out is what proves he’s wrong. “...The film does not lie.” He’s absolutely right, the film doesn’t lie.
While pursuing the Steelers subreddit, I came across a post that highlighted the lengths the Titans went to in order to contain TJ Watt. Redditor u/No_Albatross_4152 went through the All 22 Film of the Titans-Steelers game that Parsons referenced. Click here to see the post in its entirety.
What he found was that TJ Watt was doubled on roughly 13-18 different occasions during the game, depending on how you look at it. My own research showed that he was acting as a pass rusher on roughly 42 snaps. The redditor even included screenshots of each play where extra attention was paid to Watt to solidify their point.
There’s tons of speculation that Pro Football Focus (PFF) and ESPN’s models that measure a player’s effectiveness as a pass rusher using stats like win rate and double team rate, only consider a pass rusher ‘double-teamed’ if they are being engaged by two down lineman simultaneously. With that being said, I can’t find anything from either of those sources to substantiate that claim. If true, however, this would mean that TJ Watt could beat a RT and a TE, get chipped by a RB, and get the sack, but their metrics would only consider the fact that he beat the RT, meaning he wouldn’t get credit for the ‘double team rate’ stat. Myles Garrett will beat out TJ Watt for that stat every single year, because he’s bigger and attacks with strength, whereas TJ typically attacks with speed.
Considering all of that, this idea that teams aren’t giving extra attention to TJ Watt is asinine. Clearly, it’s Micah Parsons who needs to be watching more film here. And those stats he chose to reference don’t hold any weight in his argument, because TJ Watt is beating two or three or four guys on every play that takes time to develop. Also, Watt leading the league in sacks three times in four years, only missing the one year because he was hurt, sounds like he’s making a tremendous impact to me.
I know we’re almost two weeks removed from these comments being made, and while it’s probably time to move on from it, I wanted to give that redditor their flowers for taking the time to put that together. I also wanted to take a moment to implore all my fellow Steeler fans to get engaged on the Steelers’ subreddit page. It’s an awesome way to engage with other fans, and learn more about the team we all obsess over.
Anyone have any thoughts on what this redditor put together? Also, if anyone has any proof of what PFF and ESPN considers a double team, I’d love to read it! Please, reach out to me on socials.
Subscribe to receive email updates about new posts and follow me on socials!
