{"id":148995,"date":"2025-06-22T03:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T03:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/148995\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T03:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T03:21:13","slug":"impossible-to-keep-off-the-stat-sheet-bengals-orlando-brown-jr-has-high-praise-for-t-j-watt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/148995\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Impossible To Keep Off The Stat Sheet’: Bengals’ Orlando Brown Jr. Has High Praise For T.J. Watt"},"content":{"rendered":"

T.J. Watt is one of the best defensive players the Pittsburgh Steelers and the entire NFL have seen in recent memory. With that in mind, it must be annoying for tackles in the AFC North to have to block him twice a year. It is for Orlando Brown Jr., at least. Joining ESPN\u2019s NFL Live<\/a> on Friday, the Cincinnati Bengals\u2019 tackle named T.J. Watt the third-toughest player he\u2019s had to block.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gotta put my man T.J. Watt in here\u2026 As everybody knows with T.J., man, he\u2019s impossible to keep off the stat-sheet,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI mean, there\u2019s been times I\u2019ve played him, I thought I did a good job in pass-protection. And he\u2019s got two tackles for a loss on me, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s full top five included Melvin Ingram in fifth, Nick Bosa in fourth, Watt third, Myles Garrett second, and Watt\u2019s older brother, J.J., in first.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s analysis here presents a good point. Watt impacts the game in multiple different ways, not just when it comes to rushing the passer. Brown mentions being able to keep him away from his quarterback, yet not being able to stop him from making an impact against the run.<\/p>\n

The stat sheet doesn\u2019t lie, and it backs up Brown\u2019s point well. Throughout his career, Watt has led the NFL in sacks three times. However, he\u2019s also led the league in tackles for a loss twice. Those came in back-to-back years in 2020 and 2021, when Watt had 23 and 21, respectively. In each of those years, he also led the league in sacks.<\/p>\n

While his pass-rushing numbers did take a bit of a dip in 2024, Watt was still great against the run. He posted 19 tackles for a loss last year and had the same number the year prior. Since 2020, he\u2019s had at least 19 tackles for a loss in every season except for 2022, when injuries caused him to miss some time. He\u2019s also an efficient tackler, posting a missed tackle rate of just 6.2 percent last year, the lowest in his career.<\/p>\n

With that said, it doesn\u2019t mean things are all fine and dandy with Watt at the moment. Like Brown\u2019s teammate Trey Hendrickson<\/a>, Watt is involved in a contract issue of his own. He didn\u2019t show at mandatory minicamp last week, electing to take a fine in order to make a statement. It was a surprising move, something Watt hasn\u2019t done before.<\/p>\n

With that said, all signs seem to remain optimistic<\/a>. At the end of the day, the Steelers know they\u2019re better with Watt on the field. Brown seems to know that as well. The Steelers will hope they can get everything with Watt figured out soon enough and get their best defender back on the gridiron.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T.J. Watt is one of the best defensive players the Pittsburgh Steelers and the entire NFL have seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,227,256,2296,7875,7,6,22933,5226],"class_list":{"0":"post-148995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-bengals","8":"tag-bengals","9":"tag-cincinnati","10":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","11":"tag-cincinnatibengals","12":"tag-espn-nfl-live","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-orlando-brown-jr","16":"tag-t-j-watt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114724869751960254","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}