Pittsburgh Steelers Film Room: Outside Linebacker T.J. Watt

The Pittsburgh Steelers have held many visits since the season ended, whether that be at the combine, privately, or at another pre-draft event. In this new series, I will break down the pros and cons of some of those visitors as we inch toward draft day.

In the first installment of the Steelers film room, we are going to take a look at T.J. Watt. The name sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

That is because he is the younger brother of current NFL star J.J. Watt. He is about 40 pounds lighter than his older brother, but is faster by about 14 tenths of a second.

Profile

Name: T.J. Watt

School: Wisconsin

Position: Linebacker

Height: 6 ft. 4 in.  Weight: 252 pounds

The Positive Traits

Watt has good size for an edge guy but he has a little room for growth on his frame. His length allows him to get extension at the point of attack when jostling with opposing offensive tackles.

He has a nose for the football and uses his disruptive, relentless attitude to gain leverage to put himself in throwing lanes against the pass or shed and make a tackle against the run. Watt had 15.5 tackles for loss last season along with four passes defended and one interception.

Watt also displays sound tackling technique and wraps up to finish the tackle all the way through. He is able to set the edge with his length and diagnose run plays to fill lanes and disrupt the run game well.

As you can see in these videos, Watt possesses the ability to stuff the run as an edge setting linebacker. This isn’t the only part of Watt’s game that is intriguing.

Watt became a starter just last year and put up impressive pass rushing numbers. He tallied 11.5 sacks in 14 games as a starter in 2016.