Coming into week eight, the Steelers ranked seventh in the NFL with 20 sacks on the season. T.J. Watt leads the team with four sacks. Watt has come a long way from his rookie season when he had a small mix of rush moves to beat offensive tackles.
Now, Watt is showing a strong command of different approaches to beat offensive lines and sack quarterbacks. Let's look at how that's helped his game:
Watt used to be a traditional pass rusher who won matchups by simply overpowering opponents. He's an explosive athlete who always took advantage of lesser pass-protectors. Here's a perfect example of that when he used his inside hand to bully Cincinnati tight end C.J. Uzomah. Once separation was created, he breezed to Andy Dalton for the sack:
But Watt had to learn to diversify his approaches so he could force tackles to guess more in their drops to protect the edge. When edge rushers attack with different approaches, it forces linemen to guess on different moves. If a guess is incorrect, it gives the edge rusher an easier path to the quarterback.
Watch how that worked out for Watt against the Ravens' Orlando Brown Jr. Watt comes with a similar angle to how he sacked Dalton and Brown targets his inside hand to slap it down so that Watt can never establish any leverage.
But Watt beats Brown's slap but ripping his inside arm up and through Brown's arms. This gives him the leverage for a sharp turn to Lamar Jackson and record the sack:
Watt has also diversified which gaps he attacks to force tackles to play honest and not just protect their outside shoulder. His sack on the Chargers' Philip Rivers came when he started attacking the outside but crossed the face of Sam Tevi. Once he gets to the inside gap he jumps to block a passing lane for Rivers, then finishes the play by joining Anthony Chickillo on the sack:
Stephon Tuitt's absence means somebody has to step up in production for the Steelers' pass rush. Watt is the prime candidate to do that. With the different ways he's won matchups so far in 2019, he could have his biggest year ahead of him. And that would be huge considering he finished with twelve sacks in 2018, and his current 2019 pace is close to matching that.
Tonight's game is against a Dolphins offense that's given up 24 sacks in six games, tied for the fourth most in the NFL going into week eight. That's a prime opportunity for Watt to boost his sack production and get ahead of last year's pace.
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MORE CLASSROOM
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Oct. 24: Sharper edge play from Dupree
Oct. 23: Is JuJu still getting open?
Oct. 22: Edmunds’ good coverage grades
