Steelers midseason MVP is a toss-up between two players

The Steelers are now at the halfway point of the 2019 season. Here’s why Pittsburgh’s mid-season MVP is just a two-man race.

After an awful start to the 2019 season, the Steelers have finally flipped a switch. Though they started just 1-4 with virtually no chance of fighting back for a playoff spot, Pittsburgh has looked like a different team as they have won three straight games to even their record at 4-4.

Head coach Mike Tomlin deserves a ton of credit for rallying his team back the way he has. Without Hall of Fame quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers have found a way to turn things around this season and take care of business on the football field – their most recent win coming against a 5-2 Colts team.

While football is a team sport, and the credit (as well as the blame) are shared throughout the organization, there are really only two players who are in the running for the Steelers ‘mid-season MVP award.’ Those players are edge defender T.J. Watt and safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.

T.J. Watt

Watt has been unbelievable for the Steelers this year. Coming off a 2018 season in which he managed 13.0 sacks, 12 tackles for a loss, and 21 quarterback hits, Pittsburgh’s star pass rusher is on pace to crush those numbers. Prorating his statistics throughout the course of the season, Watt is on track to finish with 15.0 sacks, 14 tackles for a loss, and (most impressively) 40 quarterback hits.

Because of his utter dominance off the edge this season, Watt has placed his name in the discussion for the Defensive Player of the Year Award. According to Pro Football Focus, he is the highest-rated edge defender in the league halfway through the season with a 90.4 overall grade – above players like Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa.

Watt deserves all the credit he has been receiving, and he is easily the most consistently dominant player on the Steelers roster.

Minkah Fitzpatrick

Watt’s biggest competition for this fictitious award comes from a player that wasn’t even on the Steelers roster at the beginning of the season. An injury to free safety Sean Davis prompted Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin to make a very un-Steelers-like move: They traded a first-round pick away for a player during the season.

While there was a lot of skepticism about the trade, there is no question now that Minkah Fitzpatrick has been worth his weight in gold.

Though he has played just 6 games in a Steelers uniform, the former 11th overall pick from the 2018 draft class has 4 interceptions, 6 pass defenses, and a forced fumble. Fitzpatrick has been responsible for at least one turnover in nearly every game he has played in.

While Minkah isn’t as consistent as T.J. Watt on a play-to-play basis, he has been creating more splash plays than any Steeler since Troy Polamalu roamed the secondary. With his game-changing ability on display, Fitzpatrick is quickly becoming an All-Pro level talent.

You can try to throw in another Steeler to this list, but it would be incredibly hard to make a case for anybody over these two superstars this season. Regardless of which one of these two players you would cast your ‘mid-season MVP’ vote for, it’s nice to know that Pittsburgh has two of the very best players in the league at their positions. Let’s hope they look just as dominant in the second half of the season.