By: Brandon J. Wallace
People tend to forget, the Pittsburgh Steelers are still adding to their record of consecutive games with a sack (now at 68), and a big contribution to the streak has been star linebackers, T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree. Watt currently leads the NFL with 11 sacks, and Dupree is not too far behind with 8.
Watt took to the media on Saturday and was asked about the current streak:
"I think it's a multitude of things, I don't think you can put your finger on one specific thing. I think it goes through the guys upfront in the pass rush, the guys on the backend able to give just a half a second, a quarter second more to those guys upfront blitzing." Watt continued, "It's not just the guys up front."
As Steeler Nation already knows, Dupree was lost last week for the rest of the season against the Baltimore Ravens when he went down with a torn ACL. When asked about the deflating loss of his teammate, you could tell Dupree's absence meant more to Watt for more reasons than one, not just about his play on the field:
"I miss Bud already. It's been weird just in the short week here without having him around and just anything, as a friend, as a teammate, off the field stuff. I think Bud is just an extremely likable guy in this locker room and in this organization. He's just a very unselfish player, an unselfish person. He's always putting others in front of him, and he's just a guy that it's contagious. He makes you want to be a better person and a better football player. I can't wait until he's back around in the building."
With just five more regular season games left in the 2020 NFL season, and a hopeful deep playoff push, Dupree's absence will surely be missed. But when asked about the "next man up," Watt was confident in what the Steelers can still accomplish moving forward, and in the players that will need to step up:
"He's [Alex Highsmith] always come to work ready to work and get better. That's the thing with him, he's always asking the right questions. ...I know he's prepared and confident that he's ready to step in. ...I also think we're going to have to lean on Ola [Adeniyi] too to step up and having some big time playing for us."
In a short week, the Steelers will look to take on the Washington Football Team next on Monday Night Football at 5pm EST to try and improve to 12-0.
More to come.
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