Brutal Thoughts on Week 5

We might have seen the last of J.J. Watt and I don’t mean for the season because he is already gone for 2017. They are calling the injury (tibial plateau in his left leg) he suffered Sunday as brutal and I guess it is considering it is season-ending, but it also may have signaled the end of Watt’s excellent career whether he returns next year or not.

Watt exploded his second season (2012) in the NFL with 20.5 sacks being named Defensive Player of the Year after having a decent rookie season with 5.5 sacks. He fell back to 10.5 sacks in 2013 (suffering through quad, groin, nose, elbow, back and hand injuries), but returned to elite status with 20.5 in 2014 (with ankle and thigh injuries) and 17.5 sacks in 2015, despite having a herniated disk in his back the whole season and a broken hand for the final 3 games in addition to a groin injury. He joined Lawrence Taylor as being the only player in NFL history to win back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year awards and to win the award 3 times.

He hadn’t missed a snap his first 5 seasons, but had his streak snapped in the Wild Card game of the 2015 season when he was pulled halfway through the third quarter when the Texans were trailing 14-0 to the Chiefs. The Texans eventually lost 30-0. He has surgery a week later to fix 5 partially or fully torn muscles in his groin, torso and upper legs on both sides of body. He had played the entire season with those injuries and a herniated disk, which had bothered him during the 2014 season although that injury wasn’t listed officially.

As it turned out that was just the beginning of the end of Watt. 2016 was a lost season ending after 3 games and 1.5 sacks because of his back problems. Now this year his season is over after 5 games and 0 sacks with a non-contact leg injury.

Watt’s first sack came in Week 3 of 2011 against the Drew Brees and his last came against Alex Smith in Week 2 of 2016 for a total of 76.0 in 82 games. Since then he has gone 6 games without a sack (his longest stretch since 4 in a row in 2013.

To put Watt’s abilities in perspective Clay Matthews, who just became the Packers official career sack leader, has 75.0 in 118 games.

To top it off Watt is a wonderful human being and not an asshole like Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham, Jr, and many, many other stars in the NFL. Gentlemen like Bart Starr and Watt and Matthews don’t come around very often. To show where his heart is he raised $37,132,057 for Hurricane Harvey Relief in just 12 days. He initially was just hoping for $200,000.

Let’s hope his career isn’t over, but a serious leg injury, especially the way it happened may be the beginning of the end. It’s not a knee injury, but it seems he is now becoming injury prone missing 24 games in the last 2 seasons.

He may end up being the modern version of Gale Sayers. Sayers was a phenomenal talent that played only 4 full seasons. He missed 5 games his fourth season and then played in only 2 games in each of his final 2 seasons. He was such a talent he was inducted in the NFL Hall of Fame with only two 1,000 yards seasons and a total of 4,956.

Watt should end up in the Hall of Fame if injuries rob his of his explosiveness and he limps through the rest of his career no matter how long he guts it out before retiring. He would be a great addition to any TV booth when he hangs it up.