Steelers place T.J. Watt on IR, sign rookie edge defender to 53-man roster

The Pittsburgh Steelers placed their star player on injured reserve on Thursday. Here are the players who must step up in his absence. 

After getting a second and third opinion on the pectoral injury he suffered against the Bengals in Week 1, T.J. Watt will be out of commission until at least late October. The Pittsburgh Steelers announced they have placed Watt on injured reserve and that he’s expected to miss six weeks.

This is a much more bearable timetable than what fans initially feared, as a full pec tear likely would have ended Watt’s 2022 season. Instead, the Steelers are hopeful he can return when Pittsburgh faces the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 8. The following week, Pittsburgh has a bye, so they could err on the side of caution with his return — assuming the team is in good enough shape record-wise to do so.

With Watt headed to IR, the Steelers had an open spot on the 53-man roster, and many wondered if they would bring a player like Delontae Scott up from the practice squad. Pittsburgh elected to go a different route. After signing another edge rusher to the practice squad in Ryan Anderson, the team ultimately elected to sign David Anenih to the active roster.

Anenih isn’t a well-known name around the league, as the young pass rusher was an undrafted free agent in 2022 who was recently on Tennessee’s practice squad. Anenih played five years of college football at Houston with his best season coming in 2021 before declaring for the NFL Draft.

Now the Steelers appear to have their four edge defenders that they will move forward with in T.J. Watt’s absence: Alex Highsmith, Malik Reed, Jamir Jones, and David Anenih.

Did Steelers do enough to replace Watt?

We know that T.J. Watt is going to return sometime mid-season, but this team must be able to weather the storm while he’s recovering. Part of doing that means making sure the defense stays top-notch to help out an offense that really lacks firepower right now. So did Pittsburgh do enough to replace Watt?

I’m a bit surprised to see them go with a player with zero NFL experience. Instead of seeking out a veteran to help replace Watt’s role, the Steelers took a gamble on a very much unknown player. As the team’s fourth edge rusher, Anenih will likely be used primarily on special teams, but what does that mean for the rest of the group?

I would expect a healthy rotation on the edge with Highsmith and Reed starting and Jones coming off the bench. Highsmith will now have his hands full as teams could elect to shift the attention his way now that Watt is gone.

What makes this really concerning is that the depth is razor-thin. If Highsmith or Reed were to get dinged up and miss sometimes, the Steelers could have a really hard time generating any sort of pressure with their edge defenders (which already may be the case without Watt).

Some fans seem to be optimistic that T.J. Watt will return as soon as he is eligible to come off IR after four weeks. Though I certainly don’t want to rush him back to the field if he’s not ready, I’m sure we will all be thrilled when he is ready to take the stage. Let’s just hope an underwhelming group of edge rushers can do enough to help hold down the fort until then.