{"id":195476,"date":"2025-07-10T06:36:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T06:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/195476\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T06:36:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T06:36:14","slug":"rooney-family-member-blasts-idea-of-paying-t-j-watt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/195476\/","title":{"rendered":"Rooney Family Member Blasts Idea of Paying T.J. Watt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt during a game against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sept. 24, 2024. — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Patrick Rooney Jr., the grandson of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. and cousin of team president Art Rooney II, did not hold back on the idea of Pittsburgh making All-Pro outside linebacker T.J. Watt the highest-paid non-quarterback in the NFL. He thinks the Steelers would be \u2018absolutely insane\u2019 to do so. <\/p>\n

Patrick Rooney Jr. is not a member of the Steelers organization, so he has no say in whether Watt gets $40 million a year or more, but it interesting that a member of the Rooney family sounded off on the topic.<\/p>\n

\u201cT.J. is a great player, great Steeler, but it\u2019s insane to pay him anything right now,\u201d Rooney said on the Palm Beach Kennel Club.<\/a> \u201cAbsolutely insane. He\u2019s 31 years old. But again, if you\u2019re going all-in this year, then you\u2019re going to have to re-sign him. You\u2019re making moves right now that you\u2019re trying to do something this year. That, to me, based on anything you\u2019ve seen the last few years, seems insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt during a game against the Cleveland Browns on Dec. 8, 2024. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

The Steelers and\u00a0Watt are\u00a0reportedly not very close to a deal<\/a> as he\u2019s entering the final year of his contract. If the two sides can reach an agreement before the start of the season, could Watt holdout?<\/p>\n

ESPN insider Adam Schefter isn\u2019t ruling anything out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a long way away. I\u2019m not ready to say anything like that right now,\u201d Schefter said<\/a> on ESPN radio. \u201cIf we get to August 8th and it\u2019s still not resolved, well that becomes a little bit more interesting. And if it gets to September 8th, that\u2019s a big problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watt has already shown he is not afraid to sit out to expedite the process. He skipped OTAs and mandatory minicamp last month, so all eyes will be on Latrobe when the team reports to training camp in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

Watt is currently scheduled to make just $21.05 million in salary in 2025, none of which is guaranteed.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett was just made the highest paid non-quarterback in NFL history this offseason with a\u00a0contract extension that pays him $40 million per year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That is likely the number Watt is trying to match or break, but some don\u2019t believe he\u2019s worth that much money coming off the least-productive full season of his NFL career.<\/p>\n

However, the former NFL Defensive Player of the Year still proved to be a difference maker in 2024 while\u00a0recording<\/a>\u00a011.5 sacks and a league-leading six forced fumbles.<\/p>\n

ESPN NFL insider Jeremy Fowler recently revealed the big holdup<\/a> with Watt in his contract dispute with the Steelers. It has to do with guaranteed money and it\u2019s term length.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, people I\u2019ve talked to around the league believe it\u2019s guaranteed money, it\u2019s term length,\u201d Fowler said on SportsCenter. \u201cA lot of the details, they get sticky this time of year, especially as you\u2019re leading up to training camp. I talked to somebody with the team who said, \u2018Look, these are complicated deals to do, but we are working on it. We want T.J. Watt here.\u2019 There\u2019s not a lot of traction right now as far as a potential trade \u2014 although there would certainly be a lot of interest if the Steelers would tap into that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a situation where [Watt] is probably going to be the highest-paid edge rusher in the league when this is all said and done. It just depends on when the Steelers can do it. Typically, they like to do their deals either around training camp or leading into Week 1. So, this is far from over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aaron Becker contributed reporting for this story.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Art Rooney II<\/a> Pat Rooney Jr.<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> Steelers News<\/a> T.J. Watt<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers News Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt during a game against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sept.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[4393,7,6,41960,520,57,2360,426,2395,5226],"class_list":{"0":"post-195476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-art-rooney-ii","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pat-rooney-jr","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","15":"tag-steelers","16":"tag-steelers-news","17":"tag-t-j-watt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114827558221034897","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195476","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=195476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}