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After a slow finish to the 2024 campaign, ESPN’s Mike Clay doesn’t expect T.J. Watt to return to his normal rate of production next season for the\u00a0Pittsburgh Steelers.<\/p>\n
In his\u00a0projection guide for 2025, Clay has Watt closing out the year with 60 tackles, 10.1 sacks and 0.2 interceptions over 914 snaps.<\/p>\n
It goes without saying that he can’t finish with one-fifth of an interception or one-tenth of a sack, but Clay’s system is more so used to paint a picture of the range in which Watt will finish in those respective stats.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh’s\u00a0star edge rusher finished fourth in AP Defensive Player of the Year voting last year, though he did not record a forced fumble or sack in four of his final five games despite leading the league in the former category with six and tallying 11.5 in the latter.<\/p>\n
If Clay’s evaluation of Watt proves to be accurate, he’d finish with his fewest quarterback takedowns during a season in which he played over 10 games outside of his rookie campaign in 2017.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, Clay’s projections have Watt picking up a sack every 90.495 snaps, which would result in the third-worst rate of his career up to this point.<\/p>\n
His tackle total of 60 would also be his lowest in a year in which he suits up for over 10 games since 2020.<\/p>\n
Watt remains one of the league’s most feared defenders, though at 30-years-old, he may continue trending downward as opposed to reaching the same heights he did when winning Defensive Player of the Year in 2021 or being named a first-team All-Pro four times over a five-year span from 2019 to 2023.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Steelers\u00a0have yet to resolve his contract situation as he enters the final year of his current agreement, and it remains to be seen if they give him a market-setting deal that would surpass Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns’ pact while paying him over $40 million per season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a slow finish to the 2024 campaign, ESPN’s Mike Clay doesn’t expect T.J. Watt to return to his normal rate of production next season for the\u00a0Pittsburgh… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\n