DK’s Double Shot of Steelers: T.J. Watt signs!

DK’s Double Shot of Steelers: T.J. Watt signs!

Hi guys, welcome to Double Shot of Steelers. I’m Dan Kvachovic with DK Pittsburgh Sports and we have a fun show for you today because today is exactly one week before real stuff. Meaning yesterday was one week before reporting date. Today is one week before football, you know, they go onto the field, they do practices and stuff like that. Now, presuming they don’t tell us everything that they’re going to do the day before they go out onto the field, there’s going to be a whole heck of a lot of news generated that day just based on how it is that they happen to line up. You’ll get through the usual. There’ll be some stretching and, you know, running and stuff like that. It’s just generic, you know, athletic stuff. But you’re going to get onto the field and you’re going to see for the first time where Jaylen Ramsay lines up. You’re going to see for the first time, you know, who a lot of it’s going to get overblown. I can promise you that, too. But who goes out first with the first team? Uh who’s at which position? Who’s at which slot? who is WR2, if they even have one, how many tight ends do they send out there? All that stuff is part of the real intrigue that’s been building up, not really for weeks, but for months. And it’s funny as as it’s happening, you’re there as a as a reporter, we’re allowed within whatever it is, six feet of the sideline or something like that, and your brain’s going into hyperdrive because there’s almost too much after all these months of nothing and then doing shows like this and speculating and guessing and hearing everybody’s thoughts on this and saying, “Oh, that’s ridiculous.” Or, “Hey, that’s really good thinking.” The next thing that happens to you is it’s all taking place right in front of your eyeballs. But we’re going to talk about that today. We’re going to get into some stuff that’s going to qualify as either headlines or sub headlines over the course of what’s going to be really an extraordinary day for the Steelers. And we’re going to begin doing that with Chris Hack when we come back right after this brief message. At DK Pittsburgh Sports, we take pride in coverage that connects our city’s fans to their favorite teams. Now that connection stronger than ever, introducing our all-new state-of-the-art app. Find expert inside reporting and original podcasts. Check live box scores. Track the latest stats. Chat it up with our community of thousands of fans all in one place. The new app from DK Pittsburgh Sports. Coverage that connects. You know, this live episode of Double Shot is brought to you by Dazzle Sports, where sports memories come to life. You can get your keepsakes professionally custom framed, whether they’re sports or personal. If you’re looking to browse, buy your next collectible, you can do it from the comfort of your home on dazzle-sports.com. They’ve got so much inventory, cards, uh, modern releases on those cards, vintage finds, even protective gear like the top loaders and the sleeves, autographed jerseys, photos, game used items, a whole lot more. They support our show. So, let’s support them back. And by the way, when you do that, you get 20% off your entire order by using the code doubleshot, one word, doubleshot. whenever you check out at www.dazzleheyports.com. Hi Chris. Hey, what’s going on? We’re gonna we’re gonna get into some What’s going on? It’s such a loaded question. You ask somebody who’s in this business. I could ask you the same thing. You’d have the same response. Everything. Oh, it’s been a day today. It’s been a day. So, one of those days you’re glad happened before the start of training camp. I’ll put it that way. Oh, okay. What? We’re still looking for the dentist. Is that what it is? Oh, no. This was the the dog running off first thing in the morning. Oh, the dog ran off. Yeah. And then it’s just all just been downhill from there. It’s been a great start to the day around your place. Running downhill from your place is a long run. Sure is. I was just going to say that’s a lot of huffing and puffing there. Sure is. Okay. All right. Just checking there. Everyone Everyone’s Everyone’s making sure that Chris is okay before we get into something super serious here today. A week from now, we’ll be chugging up and down other hills. How do you like that for a transition? Segue. Uhhuh. Yeah. The actually the reporting date chugging is way more significant because it’s way up to those upper dorms. Yeah. But as far as the the football goes and the football practice goes, uh Chris and I will both be there and we’ll we won’t have enough eyes on what’s happening. That’s just the nature of the first practice is no matter how no matter what you’re looking at, you’re not looking at enough. Uh everybody around you, including by the way, fans in the stands, people up on the grass hillsides, they’re going to see stuff that you don’t. And on any given day over the course of this long summer, it could have been something that would have been the biggest story of that day. You know what I mean? Especially this time of year. What’s the first thing you want to see when they go out there? And I know you seven on seven, but I guess to an extent you can talk about seven on seven, but really 11 on 111. H first thing I want to see on the first day. Um, I I think just the thing that I’m looking for really is is just where where everybody’s lining up. What kind of what kind of personnel they’re going to be sending out on defense? What kind of personnel they’re sending out on offense? Um, what kinds of wrinkles that are we are we going to see on the offense that we didn’t see last year? Like I remember specifically last year, obviously it’s a new offensive coordinator, so I’m trying to pay attention to any kind of plays or formations that seem to be different. And last year, one was an empty set. So what would normally be for you video game players, like a five wide set, shotgun, and normally five wide receivers, but this wasn’t five wide receivers, it was 13 personnel. So three of those five split out were tight ends. And so that was obviously, oh, okay, this is one way to use 13 personnel. And when you have the tight ends that they had last year, it made a lot of sense and it makes even more sense to do it this year. But what other wrinkles are there going to be? Especially since there’s a whole new starting running back along with, you know, a very new running back room minus Jaylen Warren and obviously a brand new quarterback and Aaron Rogers. So, right. Um, yeah, I’m curious to see a lot of that kind of stuff. same same kind of stuff I watched early on last year. You know, this uh this offense in particular could show a lot of different things early on. It it could show it could show surprises. It could show things that might actually unnerve some people. Like for example, if say, you know, Calvin Austin were to line up as a WR2 or if it was to look like they were just going to minimize the WR2 or throw the WR2 out of the equation. I don’t believe that’s the case. No. But but I but I do think that you’re going to see uh I I do think you’re going to see Arthur Smith show some stuff and because he did it last year, too. We went there. We We thought we kind of had it all figured out. We thought we had a lot of stuff figured out this year and then they go and they add John U Smith. Mhm. Um I I mean no matter how often his name came up, the addition itself of that player to that room in this context was a surprise. So how do they utilize that? How do they util like how do they utilize Jonnu all by himself? Like where where does he go? You know, you where where is your third tight end? Uh you have seen Chris, we both have Janu lines up in different spots. He’s not a he’s not just a you know, you stick him right here and that’s the end of it. Uh he’s he’s a pretty versatile guy. No, the the majority of his snaps were in the slot. They weren’t even they weren’t even on the inline. Um so wonder why wonder why. Who was his who was his coach before this? Yeah. Mike McDaniel, another Shanahan product. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh yeah. So, it makes a lot of sense that Johnny Smith was used that way. I expect Arthur Smith to use him in a similar way. Again, when you when you look at like coaches that come from an an overall philosophy of how offense is supposed to be run, um where here we are talking about the Shanahan offense. Um Mike McDaniel comes straight from it. Arthur Smith is kind of grandfathered in even though people like Aaron Rogers just call him part of it. Um there will be similarities in terms of how personnel is used. And when you have two athletic passcatching tight ends, they will be used. They’re not just going to line up on the inline all the time. Like for example, the the Jets last offseason. I understand Nathaniel Hackit’s another product from that, but last year because of the tight ends the Jets had, they have one really good one in Tai Conklin, but there was a lot of just when they were in two tight end sets, they were just both on the end line right outside condensed formation. Very boring stuff. Um I don’t expect that to happen with Arthur Smith in this offense this year. So when it comes to John Smith, I expect him to be used in a number of different ways because when you have that versatile of a player, use him in versatile ways. And I think Arthur Smith is smart enough to be able to do that. John Molesco says, “First thing I want to see is how the players do on the conditioning test.” That actually does happen on the first day. That happens after the reporting. Uh but for that’s that’s that one is a is a verboten as far as the reporters go. Uh meaning we can watch it. Uh, but there there isn’t any, oh wow, like we’re not going to do playbyplay. We’re not going to videotape it. Casey Hampton is five miles behind everybody else. That’s just one of those things that is that that’s that’s not okay. Uh, in the agreement that is achieved between the team and the people who cover it and everything else here. Uh, I will repeat that there are professional teams and almost all colleges that don’t let you even come to these things. Uh, I don’t want to for that reason. Yeah. I don’t want to start getting into names and stuff, but uh you know, let’s say for example, I don’t know what rhymes with West Virginia. West Virginia University doesn’t let reporters like anywhere near their training camp. Yeah, they really don’t. Yeah. And they have a bunch of people that cover the team throughout that state, whatever. And that just you just can’t go. Yeah. Um, Pit and Penn State are a little bit better at that, but and the NFL has a lot of similar type things, you know, where and the Steelers access and people complain like, “What do you mean? What do you mean they’re allow they let you watch it, but they don’t let you report on it?” Uh, it’s better than not seeing it at all. Oh, 100%. And and for reporters, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure we can continue to watch so that the Steelers don’t get to the point of saying like, “Yeah, you guys keep breaking the rules, so never mind.” Yeah. Yeah. And right for what? For what? You know, so uh now I don’t remember what the question was now. Was there a question? Well, we were talking about Johnny Smith and just his his Oh, no, no, that was the conditioning test. Sorry. That was all the Oh, yeah. I said that he was looking forward to the conditioning test here. There there’s a that used to be interesting in the days we used to get almost a whole week’s worth of talk out of Casey Hampton finishing dead last or not being able to finish at all. And then Mike Tomlin would leak something out to somebody about how he might not make the team this year because he really didn’t and then what would happen when the season started. He was Casey Hampton again. Yeah. You know, that’s that’s that’s part of the stuff that gets that gets cleared up right now. Uh Jack Long says, “It’s been quite some time since I’ve been this excited to see training camp start.” You know, we mentioned yesterday, Chris, half almost half or depending on how it is that you track him of everybody who’s playing out of the starting 22 are new or at least new to the Steelers. That’s that’s something. I mean, that there’s a lot to see. There is quite a bit to see. And and and and there’s reason to be excited. You know, this was a 10- win team last year. I understand so much of the uh attention goes to the fivegame collapse at the end of the year, but this is still a team that won 10 games last year and they on paper have gotten better. Uh the defense looks stronger than it did last year. Uh our quarterback should be better. Running back, uh it’s it remains to be seen, but it seems to be a better fit for the way Arthur Smith wants to run the ball. receiver while you still have a need there is still better than it was last year. I mean on a tight end obviously better than it was last year. Um a lot of a lot of that and so when you have that yeah there’s plenty of reason to be excited. Do you foresee a Super Bowl season coming up? I wouldn’t go that far but is there reason to think that the Steelers can make the playoffs and possibly actually win a game and play beyond mid January? It’s actually possible. I think Dave Black, Latro veteran here. Look at this line. It’s better to be at camp when they’re wearing pads. Dave knows how this is done. Don’t waste your time on the first two, three days, unless you’re just going for the atmosphere or to see, oh, look, there’s so and so. Yeah. Go when it’s getting busy. Go when you can hear the stuff popping down there on the field. Uh go when you can see the formations, you can see the deep passes, the stuff that get every gets everybody really pumped up. Uh, that’s when it gets that when it that’s when it gets good. Jay Mood says lightning could strike. Yes, it could strike out there. Unless you mean figuratively. I think he was talking about I think he was talking about what I was talking about when it comes to like That’s not what we talk about when it storms out there because it is wide open. It is wide open. It is I mean it’s in the middle of a valley. Yeah. And so Yeah. It’s just like And the thing is strike. And the thing is is that yeah, Jam says it says figuratively. Uh but yeah, I think he was responding to the way I was talking about like what this kind of season could be and I agree lightning could strike but yes at training camp that is very much a possibility too. Um because Mike Tomlin unless there is lightning in the area, they will be outside. It doesn’t matter if it’s pouring buckets. Oh no, no. You just keep you just keep going. Yeah. and he will be if anything he like does a rain dance or something to try to get the rain coming. He’s licking his lips through the whole thing. Tim says backs on backers is the best thing. Uh, it depends on how good your eyesight is or whether or not you bring Box because they they do that in the far corner if you’re sitting in in in the seats at Chuck Null Field in the far corner of the right side of the end zone and everybody including us is around this thing, you know, like like Fight Club. Okay. Yeah, pretty much. To see to see My daughter saw Fight Club for the first time. Over the weekend. Yeah. So, she knows that right now I’m violating rule number one and two a fight club. What’s that? And two. What’s rule two? Same thing. Rule two also. Yeah. Was also don’t speak about fight club. But anyway, you’re all around backs on backers and it’s it’s pretty impressive, but you got to be close to it to really get it. Probably the probably the best view of the Oh, wait. Hold on a second. We have some breaking news here. We do. The Steelers and star TJ Watt have agreed to a contract extension. No way, Chris. Yeah, this is massive news. Watts extension right in the middle of the show. Watts extension is expected is expected to exceed 40 million a year, making him the highest paid non-quarterback in NFL history. Let me do this move just real fast to let everybody know what we’ve been saying. I’ll tell you what, we’re gonna we’re let’s uh let’s put the the block up on your side or unless you want to just stay on camera while you’re typing. Uh yeah, I got to go run and get my Yeah, go ahead. You go ahead. Take care of your business. We’ll look at your uh your studio there while you take care of stuff. Uh I’ll read this out loud for everybody that TJ Watt has in fact just signed his contract as we’ve been yawning through the entire summer telling you that he would. TJ’s deal is three years 123 million. I’m gonna repeat that just so that it sinks in because we’ve really normalized these numbers way too much in life. 3 years 123 million that includes 108. That’s fully guaranteed at the signing. The $41 million average is the highest for any nonquarterback in NFL history. Not Miles Garrett. Not anybody. Nonquarterback. It’s the most anybody’s been paid in the history of the league who isn’t a quarterback. TJ’s representation is CAA Sports has been forever. They’ve been working with Omar Khan and the Steelers to get it done. They do get it done. They get it done a week before the first practice. So, no drama, no questions, no, oh no, where’s TJ going to be? Who are they trading him to? When everybody’s telling you that there’s absolutely no chance that that’s going to happen. TJ got paid. The reaction from our community here in real time is great. You deserve it, TJ. Ashley throws an F-bomb out, meaning in the good the good kind of fbomb. That’s all right. Uh Cat Manada, where the heck have you been, dude? says, “Yeah, wife is happy to hear from you.” Says, “We are shocked. Who would have guessed that the Steelers would pay TJ? Not if you were watching this show.” Uh, David says, “Wow, very big contract. Good for TJ. Great for us, the fans. Now we have a complete defense.” Uh, I’m just going to keep reading some of your stuff here. Oh, DK says, “Can we have a Raone Foster style?” TJ got I’m trying to do the way Bone did it that day when Cam Hayward got his last extension out at Chuck Nullfield. We should bring Moan up just for that to do that for TJ. I bet you he’d get a big kick out of that. Meaning TJ. Uh Damen Ellswick comes in with some additional sarcasm. Says, “I thought he was getting traded for three first round picks according to ESPN and everybody else. Don’t don’t limit it to the people who don’t cover the team. There are people who do cover the team who were going along with this stuff, too. Uh Craig Cole, is it a sign and trade? More sarcasm. Uh Spaceman says, “We knew this would happen all along.” Yeah. And I I don’t mean to make it sound like we’re we’re going on some big told you so or whatever. I mean, they’re the Steelers. This is exactly what they do. This is exactly what they’ve done now for how long? There was one exception, one significant exception to this over the last 30 years, and that was Levian Bell because he had an agent who had a brain about this big. See how big? This is how big Lev Lev Bell’s agent’s brain was. and he thought he would get Lev paid in some weird way, you know, and and you know, it were all kinds of different reports that came out. Far from a deal, not close. Here are the problems. Here’s all this and that. And what did we keep saying to you? What did we keep saying? This is why you’re here. By the way, I’m going to seize upon this opportunity because I’m not above this. If TJ’s going to get 123 million out of this, we’re going to get at least 99 cents. Okay. So, go to dkps.net/join and become a member because you know where you can get your real information. William says, “I never had a doubt.” Well, you never had a doubt because you’re here. dkps.net/join. Okay. Get that done. It’s 99 cents a month. Covers a whole channel. Raone, Matt Williamson, Chris Hock, everything. Uh, the other three million shows and the other five million shows that I do points out the boss here. This is all I’m doing pretty much around the whatever. Uh Ray says, “I called it.” I’m not doing that. I’m not doing that. There’s There’s no There’s no Guys, seriously, stop that. This is Okay. Steeler South says, “How will this affect uh this year’s contract?” We don’t have details yet. As you can see, this is happening in real time. Uh we’ve actually put Chris uh on the job. He’s now typing stuff for our uh for our website, making sure that we get that at the top. Uh, it’s obviously the the biggest news of the day. That is Chris typing in Pittsburgh Sports. Look at Chris typing. Well, she’s such a spy. Look at that. She just the director just turned on. She got him to look. That’s actually very funny. Just leave it up there. Chris Kim because that headline’s no good anymore anyway. It’s TJ. It should say TJ got signed. All right. You want to do that? Sure. Uh Brent says, “Hit that like button. This is the best Pittsburgh sports coverage.” So, give them some love. Whether we’re the best or not, that’s not uh we’re trying hard. We’re trying hard. She says that we are, but she’s got a bias in this for sure. Uh Michael says he’s disappointed that Chris isn’t singing while he’s typing so we can really watch him multitask. Would you just just leave him alone? He’s trying to get work done. He’s not getting he’s not getting anything done. Uh I’m going to repeat the the the information here for you again that that TJ has become the highest paid non-quarterback in NFL history. Um by the way, that’s the second time that that’s been the case. That’s the second time that the Steelers have treated him with that measure of respect. his last extension hit the same criteria. So, as I’ve been telling you all along here, all that needed to happen was you had to have somebody or multiple somebody’s involved in this who would know how to get creative and how to frame it in a certain way so that it would meet the expectations. And if TJ feels like, hey, I’m the best defensive player in the world, which he is, and if he feels like, you know, I’ve given this much, this much, this much to the franchise, to the city, and everything else. There she is with the new the new banner for us. Uh, you know, that’s one of the things that you have to deal with in sports. But the beauty of it is that you have an Omar Khan on this side as your general manager, and Omar can work all this stuff in the cap. I will be surprised. And we’ve been telling you this for months as well. If this extension doesn’t in fact lower the Steelers cap hit for the coming season, for the 2025 season, it’s going to take a little bit of time to figure all that stuff out, but we’ll get there. Robert Sham says, “Is Miles Garrett storming into the GM’s office right now?” No. No. And you want to know something? These guys understand that whenever they break the record or they become the highest paid that the very next day somebody else could top that. Did Trey Hendrickson get signed? Did anybody ever check on that? Did did the Bengals ever sign him? Uh seeks new contract contract. No. Okay. So if Hendrickson says, “Listen, I’m younger and I think I, Trey Hendrickson, am a better player than TJ Watt, even though he isn’t.” And then Hendrickson could top him later today, but it doesn’t matter because at the time that you put pen to paper, you’ve already, you know, you’ve set that standard. D boy says, “What a great day.” Dave says, “What in the world is happening?” Somebody had to come through with one of those. Uh, I don’t know what this means. Steve says, “Grateful that TJ won’t be appearing with a cheesy graveyard today.” Oh, the Miles Garrett graveyard in front of his house. That’s only for Halloween. He doesn’t keep that up year round. That would be pretty psychotic. Not to mention, it definitely get him in trouble with the homeowners association. Uh TJ is now getting paid, according to John, more than the entire Pirates roster. He is not. I’m sure it feels like that when you watch them sometimes, but he absolutely is not. Uh Benny says, “I’m just getting here. Did I miss anything?” Cody says, “I thought once a player was drafted, they couldn’t go back to college. Stewart just signed yet and is practicing at&m.” That’s a Bengals story. Take that up with double shot of Bengals, Cody. I’ll bet they have a double shot of Bengals. Maybe they don’t. Uh Miles Garrett would probably pay the Homeowners Association fines with no problem. I don’t know, man. Those can those can run up on you. Not that we’ve ever violated homeowners association policies. Uh yeah, we’ve got so much stuff going on here. I’m look I’m simultaneously looking at our our staff here at DK Pittsburgh Sports communicating with each other in real time here. uh in reshuffleling our homepage. We’re getting alerts out to our readers. If you don’t have our app, by the way, uh or our app or our website, you’re missing out on a lot. We we keep you up to date on stuff. Um Michael says, “Did you see the the photo that that TJ posted today? He’s a monster.” I did. Can I say something about this? It was a for anybody who didn’t, it’s TJ and Nick Herbig after a workout and all smiling and everything which right off the bat he’s there with his fellow outside linebacker. You’re you know all the positive vibes and everything but did anybody else think that he looked bigger like there’s all kinds of different ways that you can stand. We got a thumbs up from H. He too thought Oh, he did. Yeah, he looked bigger. And I I have a feeling Yeah. She says, “Cody says uh uh Cody says TJ looked bulky compared to Herbig.” Well, Herbig’s not the biggest outside linebacker. Okay. Uh but TJ’s arms in particular, they looked kind of like tree trunkish. And that’s going to be interesting to see here. Yeah, that’s what everybody’s talking about here. Now again, it might be just that he was either flexing or his arms was arms were pressed against his torso or whatever. Uh Michael says TJ had to get stronger to hold that bag of money. $123 million even in the biggest possible bills has to be pretty heavy. You know what if it was in coins? Uh Deborah says that TJ looked pumped. He looked pumped or he looked like he was pumping is what he looked like. Uh looked almost like Debo. Hey, listen. He’s going to be in. We’re going to talk to him and we’re going to ask him all kinds of questions. Nate Biano points out here, poor Jose Negron, our baseball writer, and his Pirates story. He had Jose just wrote his his heart out forecasting the Pirates second half of the season. Poof, there it goes. I’m sure he’ll get over it. Uh D boy says, “Now it’s time to find WR2 and maybe FS1. Don’t rule that out as well.” Uh Mike says, “This might be a stupid question. Mike can actually find something to ask about that isn’t TJ here. Uh being that Brick Jones played on the right side all last year and that’s all that other teams have to go by to study him and prepare, is that a benefit when he moves?” I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I don’t really don’t think you have to you don’t scheme around how the other guys block. They have to scheme around what it is that you’re doing as a defensive player. You’re the proactive one uh in that one. So John says, “What is a beast? What is a beast?” But I don’t deny that Miles Oh yeah, Garrett’s build is something. And maybe maybe it’s the TJ just doesn’t doesn’t want to get bull rushed. Maybe if if in fact he is bigger. Maybe he just is tired of getting swallowed up by multiple bodies. He’s become even bigger and stronger and he wants to make sure that he elevates his game appropriately. And that of course is going to involve moving around and maybe moving around a lot. Tyler says, “Just wait until people hear how much we’re spending on defense.” Yeah, there’s that, too. I thought I saw something. No, no, no. Steelers will still have the highest paid defense, but a lot of that has to do with not paying a quarterback, and they haven’t really done that for about five or six years now. Uh, Yeet says TJ looks like someone you’re going to want to chip even more. Robert says TJ went on the JJ diet. The truth is, when I saw him, when I saw that picture today, I actually my first thought was JJ. That’s actually what JJ’s arms have looked like forever. You know, uh what a day, huh? A bigger TJ is okay by me. It’s okay if he retains his mobility, if he retains his quickness, his burst, and all those other things that have made him uh special, legitimately special. I’ll ask you guys a question. We’re going to throw this back here at you now that TJ is all locked up. And by the way, let’s let’s do it again for anybody who’s jumping in here live. Uh TJ Watt has signed it’s a three-year $123 million extension that includes 108 million guaranteed at signing. Now remember when we say extension we’re talking about in addition to the year for which he was already signed. Okay? So it’s actually four years total. It’s not now three years including the coming season. That’s important to note. The $41 million per year average of the extension of the extension, again, not counting this year, is the highest for any non-quarterback in the history of the game. That’s some pretty special territory there for a special player. I’m going to ask you guys, when you’re talking about the greatest defensive players, you knew I was going to do this, in franchise history, where does TJ rank? Set aside your 1970s biases, the older ones among you, if you can. Best defensive players in franchise history. And yes, I get that’s a long list. And yes, I get that a whole bunch of them were granted yellow jackets. Okay, I’m talking about the best ever. Does not have to I mean, I’ll tell you mine straight out. You can go from there. Mine isn’t going to surprise anybody. Mine is the legendary, the greatest Steeler of all time, the guy who made the Steelers what they are. Back then and today, that would be your Mean Joe Green. Okay. Yes, Mean Joe is still number one. If TJ were to go and get two more DPO wise, we can start having that conversation or something. But Mean Joe Green is number one for me. Um, we’re gonna get a lot of Troy Palamalu. Uh, in this case, uh, 412 says, “Mean Joe, then Troy, then TJ.” I’m not putting Troy ahead of TJ. Troy was dynamic. Troy was entertaining. Troy was different. Troy impacted the game in a way we’d never seen any safety do. But if you want to talk about Troy, and I’ll bet you Troy would agree with me on this, we could have a debate as to whether or not Troy was the the Steelers best safety ever. Okay, just throwing that out there. Well, hang on. No, I take that back. They got Mel Blunt. Mel Blunt’s a corner. Uh that’s who I was thinking of. Let’s let’s say let’s say defensive back then. So, uh David says green then Lambert. No, Lambert had the image and the missing teeth and all that other stuff. He’s not in this class. Uh Palamalu then then Watt. I mean, everybody loves Troy. How can you not love Troy? Troy is super entertaining. Mike Jones says, “I thought you said we weren’t using those guys.” No, no, no. I didn’t say that. I just said, “Don’t let it become a bias for you. Just because they played in the 1970s, that means automatically they’re better than everybody else.” That’s what I meant by that. Uh, Phil says, “Mean Joe defines the franchise.” Nobody Nobody would dispute that, including number 90, I should add, who’s reduced to the same writhing ball of protoplasm that we all are whenever we’re around uh Mr. Green to this day. Uh, Daniel says, “What needs the jewelry though?” Really? You know what? Watt needs the jewelry. But Watt needs to win a playoff game. And if I’m not in the business of doing predictions with you guys, you know that. But if there’s one thing I could safely forecast, it’s that whenever we talk to TJ, whether that’s at a special press conference between now and the opening of training camp or whether it’s right there in Latrobe, I can I can lay every thing I own on TJ bringing up not once but repeatedly, it’s time to win in the playoffs. It’s time to win in the playoffs. That’s how it’s going to be here. Williams says they’re going to be like that to TJ one day. You mean later on? Yeah. I mean, I Let’s see if we can get a couple more of these here. Celeste says, “Oh, she brings Debo into it. Good for her.” Uh, says, “Mean, Joe Green, then Debo, then TJ, and then Rod Woodson. Please don’t forget about Rod Woodson and what he did here.” I mean, my goodness, the the secondary that these guys have had over the years. Uh, Mark says, “Wad is number two all time. Let’s get him a playoff win.” Uh Preston says that uh Troy is absolutely the best football player I ever saw. He was playing a different game than anybody else. Yeah, that’s why I keep referencing the his his dynamism, his difference, you know. Um yeah, Adam gets silly on us and starts throwing in Arty Burns and Devin Bush. Somebody has to do it. It was Adam today. Uh Dr. K says TJ’s top five. Well, listen. Can we at least agree that he’s top three? Yeah, you know, back in that day in the 70s, 80s, 90s, whatever, the whole DPI thing wasn’t some heavily discussed, let’s see what the votes are kind of thing. It just wasn’t. You were you were an allp pro or you weren’t. You were a Pro Bowl selection or you weren’t. Uh, so we don’t necessarily know, you know, how many, you know, how would you have looked at, for example, you know, I’m mentioning Mel Blunt, and not enough of you are, by the way, mentioning Mel Blunt. You want to talk about somebody who changed the game, uh, Blunt, Woodson, Troy, uh, Chris, Mike Wagner in the secondary. That’s a that’s a nice name to be throwing into this mix here. Uh, I don’t know how you couldn’t have TJ into your top three just based on defensive player of the year. Uh, honors, finalists, the way he’s been so far ahead of other players at his position. Yes. Including the guy in Cleveland for as long a time as he has been. Daniel Suarez says that Rod Woodson was my favorite player growing up. Troy, watching him in person was absolutely incredible. TJ’s right there. Troy is baby Jesus. Yeah, there’s that, too. Is Chris done writing? Can we bring him back? Yeah, he is. You can bring him back now. There he is. What’s up? All the work done. We got you talk for a while or you do the comments and I’ll proofread your article. How about that? Thank you. Thank you. It’s only four four paragraphs right now. It’ll I’m sure they are four fine inspired paragraphs. I’m going to read them now. You go. So, one of them that I’ll give because it’s free for everyone so to to read. So, I’ll put it on here. Um, the average annual value. So, here people here are 41 million per year and they’re going to freak out and be like, “Oh my god, it’s just way too much money. It’s just the extension. It’s 14.4% of the Steelers salary cap.” The last time the Steelers signed TJ Watt to a contract extension, it was more than 15.3% of the salary cap. So, in terms of how the dollars are allocated for the salary cap for the Steelers, this is a better team deal than the last one was, even though this is a record deal. It’s all about how the league is growing, how you and how this the cap grows with it. By the way, for those of you who are baseball fans who need to understand about the salary cap and how it can be beneficial, here you go. The NFL salary cap is growing exponentially every year, which is why they are able to pay TJ Watt $41 million a year and it not be an outrageous number. It sounds like an outrageous number because no edge rusher has ever been paid this much, but it’s still a very similar percentage of the cap that the last contract was. Mhm. Now, he’s four years older. Of course, you have concerns about that, but this is also a three-year deal. This isn’t four years or five years. by the time the contract’s done, and I’m I assume that he would be probably what, 33, 34 by the time the contract’s done, then okay, then you can start revisiting some more shortterm type contracts and probably at a lesser average annual value. But my gosh, like this is not a bad deal whatsoever. So everybody who’s thinking, oh well, TJ’s on the on the wrong side of 30 now. Oh, they paid him too much money. I don’t think that’s quite the case just yet. So, uh, yeah, he’s a stealer for life. Chris, let’s let’s let’s look at that term right there. Okay. Was what happens is it I’m going to keep saying this because you’re going to see it cast as three-year extension. And it is a three-year extension, but it’s a three-year extension on top of an existing year. The the existing year wasn’t rewritten. The Steelers don’t do that. Yeah. Okay. What they did was they just added three. So he’ll be 34. Yeah. In that range, right? That’s that’s plenty. Okay. At that position at edge rusher, we we’re watching Von Miller now, you know, go from team to team. He just signed with Washington yesterday. Um, you know, it’s he he’s gonna be a Steeler for life. and a Steeler for life is exactly what he should be because that 90 should be up there uh with the 75s. And it’s not just about Hall of Honor. It’s not just about Hall of Fame. It’s also about where you stand in franchise history. U I am I I have been both surprised and disappointed. And I’m not saying this just now. I’ve been saying it all along. And the people who have just kind of flicked that aside like that doesn’t matter. You know, if you want to be the Jaguars, go be the Jaguars. Okay. Yeah. If you want to be the Arizona Cardinals or the Atlanta Falcons who who celebrate the career of Matt Ryan as you go through their stadium. Okay. And you saw those Chris when we were down there the last couple years. We’ve been down there twice now. You look at that. Look at you know Dirty Birds and it’s it’s a bunch of people you go, “Oh yeah, they played in the NFL. I forgot about them.” They’re the Pittsburgh Steelers and they’re associated with with great truly great players. You if you lose that, regardless of who your current head coach is, who your next head coach will be, you lose such a big chunk of your own identity, of your own pride, and I’m sorry, I can’t be convinced that that’s not something that you take out onto the field with you on Sundays to an extent to to a fair extent. Mhm. And I I think the the one the one difference and it really just occurred to me and I don’t know why it just occurred to me because I know it. It’s very obvious, but the last time a contract extension was done with TJ Watt, Omar Khan wasn’t the GM. It was Kevin Colbert who was the one who ultimately got that done. Well, that was 2021. That was 2021. I know, but Omar was here and Omar was doing a lot of that stuff. Omar was here, but Omar was helping in terms of how the how the contract is structured to benefit the cap the most. Um, but the GM of record is still Colbert and that deal it took till the final hour to get that done. This gets done what, six days before players report to training camp. Like I’m not saying that like, oh, Omar is better than Kevin Colbert. He’s got a long way he’s got a long way to go before he would get to Kevin Colbert’s territory because Colbert still has two Super Bowls under his belt. Um, but this it’s it’s it’s cool to see this happening early on in his tenure and the fact that it wasn’t that long ago, what a couple weeks ago that Art Rooney upped or like like signed Khan to his own extension. Yes. And that puts full faith in, okay, we’re going to trust you to get the stuff done that needs to get done. And this TJ thing doesn’t get done going on into training camp where he’s either holding in or he’s holding out. They avoid the entire situation all together. Even though there were reports that the sky was falling and the Steelers are listening to trade calls and all the outside noise, it gets done. And I think it’s another when you talk about the things that Omar has done well and the things that he hasn’t done well. It’s another thing it’s another uh achievement in the column of things that he’s done well. Can I throw out something here? Uh, and and and Chris, I I don’t know if your information is exactly the same as mine, but I want to re-emphasize this and I want to do it in figurative all capital letters, glowing neon blaring from the top of the actual Mount Washington. The Steelers never discussed a TJ Watt trade. No, with anybody. No. Okay. Everything, every syllable that anyone spoke or wrote about the Steelers and TJ and a trade was 100% untrue. Yeah. Okay. And you as the reader or the consumer are allowed to be discerning about where it is that you get your information. So if you can file away something that because just because somebody wins the day in the media by saying, “Oh, TJ, they’re talking trade with TJ.” And that person gets themselves a lot of views on YouTube or a lot of hits on Twitter. The real problem is is that they never technically pay a price for it. They never get punished for it because the next time they do something like that, x number of people are still going to go running to it like catfish. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But this is what this is what they do. Okay. This is what they’re looking for. And sometimes it’s even in the hypothetical sense like like Richard here mentions ESPN. They’re not alone, but we can mention them. Okay. If you build a show, an entire show around who’s the team that’s most likely to get TJ Watt if he’s traded. Okay. Well, you’re tuning in because you want to hear it’s the Cowboys or you want to hear that that that he’s heading to one of the New Jersey teams and everything. And what happened when you asked us? What did we do? Just kept telling you. Just just we just kept dumping on you. We just kept saying, “No, we’re not doing this.” Okay. We’re not doing this because we know he’s signing. Not that we believed he was signing. It wasn’t an opinion. Mhm. It did just we we were being told they were they were were absolutely getting this done and we talked to TJ on an almost daily basis in season. We know where his heart was. Why? We’re in the locker room dealing with him. Matthew Bunk drops a hundred bucks in. He says it’s just because of the new TJ deal. That’s really cool, man. We appreciate that. Matthew is in a good mood about this. And I’ll tell you what, I had a really spirited podcast a few weeks ago that some people got really upset about. Some people said, “I’m never listening to you again.” Uh, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that. And I called people out and said, “I’m sorry. If if if you’re in favor of TJ Watt being traded for draft picks, if you’re in favor of that, if that’s something that never mind how plausible or not plausible it was, I I I don’t know why you’re following this franchise. I don’t know why you’re claiming to to support this franchise because that’s not who they are. Yeah. And same goes for this player. Okay, listen. TJ was going to be just fine financially with or without this deal. Okay. The the Watt family was not going to be scraping by for the next multiple generations. Okay. But if you were that way about TJ, were you actually one of those 68,500 people who fill those yellow seats when he kicks the air after after a big play? Are you really one of those people? Yeah. Oh god, they got so mad about that. I mean, but I mean, listen, like the the thing that people need to understand and remember, and it’s going to happen again next off seasonason because it it happens every single offseason. There is always going to be something to be talked about and there is always a period. There are always periods in which people need stuff to talk about to fill up airtime and and we’re not different than that. I mean, we have to do it, too. We do more shows than most, right? But when the Steelers are, you know, and they were probably even more so than they have been in a while because of the whole Aaron Rogers situation that happened and then the TJ Watt. But the thing is is that I knew that as soon as Roger stuff got take got taken care of and he was signed and done that the attention would then shift to TJ Watt because he wasn’t signed to his extension yet. And that’s the territory that we go into at this time of year because this period right here between mini camp and training camp is the most dead period of the year for the NFL and people need stuff to talk about and you will on on every now and then see extensions done the week leading up to training camp. We saw it what a couple days ago or yesterday when the Jets took care of Garrett Wilson and S Gardner. It just boom boom done. New contracts for both guys. They did too. Bang bang. Yeah. You see that that kind of stuff get done. We want to get the stuff before training camp starts. That way everybody comes. There’s no holdouts. There’s no holdins. We don’t have to worry about it. And he can just come and he can be ready to go. And so people needed stuff to talk about. Of course, when you see other extensions getting done and TJ’s not getting done, of course, oh my god, they’re not getting they’re they’re not getting any closer. And this is also usually how it happens. He usually just pops up out of nowhere. Oh, by the way, Steelers and TJ Watt sign a contract extension. Oh, there we go. Uh, so it just I I don’t blame everybody for needing, like you said, we have we have to fill up air time, too. We have to talk about stuff. You have daily shots that you do, and they’re Steelers. I did a whole segment last week on the the two punters coming to camp. Oh, I mean, with much respect. I mean, the Steelers have two very, very good punters. It’s a legit issue, but I’m not doing that for clicks, kids. Okay? I don’t even think Christian Coun would tune in for that one. Okay. Yeah. Actually, he might. He’s got the character for it. Yeah. It’s It’s just But that’s why like we tell you like, yeah, we would tell you to listen to us because, you know, we you know, we’re here for a reason. But at the same time, just make sure that you know the reason why we stayed here is because we we level with you. We tell you exactly what we’re here and we’re not we’re there every single day. Wherever the team goes, we go. If DK is not going, I’m going. I’m usually the one who goes and follows them around during the offseason when they’re going to Mobile or Indianapolis or wherever the owners meetings are. I’m the one who follows them around, probably annoying them a little bit. Uh, but I do that so that I can have the most information. That’s why every time even it came up with our subscribers on our website, I’m like, he’s getting signed. There’s nothing to be talked about here. Like, I’m sorry to keep raining on your parade and giving you this very boring answer, but he’s going to get signed. And that’s he’s going to get signed. We gave boring answers and we might not have won the day, but you know, beer is good food. He has one concern here. He says, “Now that the TJ deal is done, can we go back to dissecting videos of Aaron Rogers walking his dog on the beach and what that means for the Steelers?” He didn’t have a dog. Did you see a dog? Uh, I never saw an Aaron Rogers dog. Unless he has like a CGI type dog like Krypto. I mean, you were you were Oh, man. I I’m There was no dog. No, you’re the one who edited that, by the way. That that that picture, right? When we had to put together Yeah, because remember we had we had to put together a picture like we Oh my god, that’s right. But there was no dog. No, that’s what I’m saying. You should know better than everybody that that you’re I forgot. Yeah, you were writing about him on the beach and I went and we had to clean up the photo. Oh my goodness. But there was no dog. There was no dog. No. The boss occasionally will do some of that photo editing for us and she’s like, “Can I just wash this guy out?” And I’m like, “No, it’s journalistic ethics, whatever.” Now, if maybe she washed the dog out. Did you wash Aaron Rogers a dog out? No. You should see the look I’m getting right now. She doesn’t need a microphone for that look. David says the dog took the picture. This is why we have you guys. This is why we have you guys. That’s pretty good stuff. So, can can can everybody feel a little bit better about this for everybody who’s I I I have a new number. I’m going to add this to my story really quick. So, the three-year extension is on top of what he is being owed this year. So, that brings a total of four years and 144.05 million which divided by which is an average of 36 million a year. So if you look at it from that perspective, it is not the record deal. See, that’s what I mean. I said there was it’s been saying all along, there’s a way you can do this where you can say one thing as a framework. Okay. This extension represents the highest whatever. Okay. Correct. But the fouryear span doesn’t. They left the first year alone. Yeah. So the first year gets left alone. It would not surprise me though and because I I I we did get a question earlier and I don’t remember if I started or not of like how does this affect the cap space for this year right now? I mean just because we actually know the contract details of Jaylen Ramsey and Johnny Smith which I have both of those on our Steelers feed on dkitsports.com um they have according to spot track $25 million in cap space in doing nothing to TJ Watt’s contract. So if they wanted to go and get WR2 They can they can do that. You can set aside the 10 million that you need poss like 8 million that you need. It’s five. It’s five. You mean the walking around money for in season? They can get by with five because pro-rated. You’re not going to We’re going to start boring people to death here. I I We’re going to have time for one more uh question here and then we’re going to make you guys a deal. Okay? So stay tuned. All right. Triple Double says, “This is a huge mistake. We can’t pay a 30-year-old record dollars. Uh, think of all the moves that Mike Tomlin has made the last two years. I can’t help but feel that he has one foot out the door and does not consider the team’s future. Now, I have respect for this stance even without the 10 bucks being dropped. You’re going to have to take my word for that. Okay. Um I I from a purely ice cold practical standpoint, if you just fell here from the moon and you were running this team, you could see where this deal might be troublesome. Okay. But one of the subjects that we’ve had, coincidentally, on this on the show all week long has been this idea that you have a team loaded, especially on the defensive side of the ball, with people who are really, really determined to win right now. Who are those people? go through the whole list of the names that we’ve been mentioning, the new acquisitions, and how motivated they are in their final year or in the cases of TJ and Cam, who, you know, TJ never having won a playoff game, Cam hasn’t won one in forever. Uh, these guys want to win and they want to win right freaking now. So, what price do you put on that? This is, you know, the people who could have parachuted in when the Tampa Bay Bucks did something like this a few years ago. They could have won all those arguments. People who were supporting the Rams when they made their run and they traded away 700 future draft picks. Okay, you could make the same arguments, but you have to remember that there’s only one objective in this sport and in this league. There’s one. It’s not winning trades. It’s not winning transactions. It’s not winning the draft. It’s not winning whatever the hell the Browns think they’re winning every March. It’s winning the Super Bowl. It’s winning the Super Bowl. And that’s what they’re trying to do here. Yeah. And and listen, when you look at it from the perspective that it’s record money, then yeah, you can be it. It really is all about how you view it. You can look at it from the perspective of an edge rusher’s never been given an extension that’s worth $41 million a year. You can also look at it from the perspective and this is how teams look at it. So that probably means a little bit more is how are that dollars allocated to the salary cap and this contract this extension is less of the salary cap percentage than his last contract extension was. So he did not I mean he actually got a better team deal. He got a worse deal this time around than he did the last time based off of the way the dollars are being allocated toward him. So, it really is all about how you want to view it. If you want to just sit sit there and look at it from, oh, it’s record money, he’s 30 years old, blah blah blah. Or you can be like, listen, he’s taking up less of the pie this time around than he did four years ago when he was probably a better player and he did go on to win defensive player of the year that year. But who says he doesn’t get this and then go and win defensive player of the year again this year? I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that he probably should have won it when Miles Garrett was pretty much handed it. Guys, we’re going to make you a deal as I just promised. Uh we’re gonna we’re going to tell you that when we come back right after this uh really brief break and uh we’re hoping you can stick around with us in more ways than one. Okay? So just hang on. All right. So here’s the deal. First thing is we’re going to take care of uh some business here. Jack Long just dropped by right now actually with 10 gifts. gifted memberships. If you aren’t already a member on your own, go to dkps.net/join. You have to type that up into your URL. Uh the Smith family comes in with the exact same thing also and equally appreciated. Triple double uh had a $10 gift here. Uh Daniel Suarez with 129 Mexican something or others. I’m not sure what that is because it says dollars and I know that Mexico doesn’t use dollars. So, we’d have to think what what’s what is it? Is it Mexican peso? Do we know? Yes, she’s the the cross word expert over there doing peso. You know, you know that from, right? Because it’s got vowels. Oh, she was in Mexico, too. And she used pesos. Cultured. Uh Mike from Jersey came in as a new member. Dan Derek Daniels, I was about to call you Dark Derek for some reason. Came in as a new member. Uh J11 came in with a couple of bucks here. says he’s coming to a ball game here uh this weekend and he might visit. What do you mean might visit your store? What is there a condition? Come and see us. Has a couple of bucks is is going to have to do for the day. Carrie Russell with one. Chris Dolnac with a couple as always. And uh William Carroll came in as a new member. And we’re saving a very special mention for Matthew Bunk who came in and dropped $99. Uh, can you look up what what 129 Mexican pesos is here so we can have the appropriate reaction? I guess. Yeah, you should be excited. I’m excited regardless. If it was 129 cents, I would be excited about it, Daniel. I just want you to know that and grateful. Uh, but just curious, you know, because if it’s like Huh? 687. There you go. It’s like seven bucks. Appreciate that, man. That’s really cool. You certainly didn’t have to do that. It just looks really dramatic, you know. But Matthew, we appreciate you. We appreciate everybody who contributes. Now, how about this, Chris? We’re just playing this out here in real time. How about me and you each take like about a half hour or 45 minutes or so to kind of do some work, check with some people. Yeah. I’ve already got I’ve already got things. I’m sure. I’m sure. How about if we do that and then we all hook up here again? Members only. Members only. Members only at 5:45 p.m. Is that a deal? For more TJ talk. 5:45 p.m. Eastern time. Okay. It won’t be a show this long, but it’s going to be for members only because we feel like there’s there’s more to say here and more of your reaction that we want to get and everything else. And plus a little something for the members. Okay. You have 45 minutes to subscribe. You have 45 minutes. Oh, yeah. That’s it. She said that the deadline here. Oh my god, you got to hurry. As soon as this show gets done, dkps.net/join to become a member so you can be part of the next discussion that we’re about to have. All right, there it is. dkps.net/join. Just jump on it there. All right, we’ll see you guys at exactly 5:45 p.m. Eastern. Bye-bye.

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