During the 2021 NFL offseason, one of the biggest names that became available was JJ Watt. After spending the first 10 seasons of his career with the Houston Texans, he was a free agent for the first time after being released in February of that year.
He didn’t remain a free agent very long as the Arizona Cardinals inked him to a two-year, $28 million deal just a few weeks later. The Cardinals would be the final team that JJ Watt played for in his career, as he finished up that contract before retiring at the end of the 2022 season.
It certainly looked like he had enough left in the tank to help a team win some more games as he finished his career on a high note with a 12.5 sack season, with 18 tackles for loss, 25 quarterback hits and seven passes defended. But, he seems content with retirement, revealing that he isn’t working out to play this offseason while making an appearance on the Green Light with Chris Long podcast.
During that interview, he also revealed that there was another team that he was strongly considering signing with in 2021. The Pittsburgh Steelers were on JJ Watt’s list so that he could play alongside his brothers, T.J. and Derek.
However, it wasn’t meant to be. T.J. was in contract negotiations with the Steelers on a long-term deal and it wasn’t something that JJ Watt wanted to interfere with.
“Certainly, it would have been awesome to play with my brothers, but T.J. was also going through the contract situation there, and the last thing I was going to do was come in and take any money away from his contract,” he said.
T.J. and the Steelers would eventually agree to a four-year, $112 million deal. There is certainly a chance that having JJ Watt signed before that could have lowered the amount of money that T.J. received, but the Cardinals also came with an aggressive offer.
Would playing with his brothers have outweighed potential earnings for both Watt brothers? It is something that opponents certainly are happy about not coming to fruition as attempting to block JJ Watt off of one edge with T.J. opposite of him and Cameron Heyward in the middle is nightmare fuel for offensive coordinators.
