TJ Watt Wanted To Prove His Worth After Contract Extension

It came down to what seemed like the very last hour for TJ Watt and the Pittsburgh Steelers in regards to Watt's contract extension this past off-season. Watt was protesting as kindly as he could during training camp. He wanted a new contract prior to the beginning of the regular season. He didn't want to risk major injury without that insurance of a long-term deal.

With a deal that was set to make Watt the highest paid defensive player ever on the table, Watt agreed -- against his agents wishes too. But Watt had enough. He wasn't going to haggle over the last few million dollars. He knew he wanted to be here and any longer was going to lead to him possibly missing the opening game of the season.

The contract was signed, and it was time to perform now. Injuries slowed Watt down at different points of the season, but when he was healthy, he was the best defensive player in the NFL.

“Any time someone’s willing to hand you over $100 million dollars, you want to make them right,” Watt said. “You want to make them believe that the choice they made to give you that money was right and that's my goal -- to continue to prove it. This year was this year and now I’m going forward and Mr. Rooney was able to give me a contract like that. I’m so thankful but there’s so much work that’s still to be done.”

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Watt would end up tying the NFL record for sacks in a season. He reflected on that this weekend at the Pro Bowl:

“You just kind of get in a groove,” Watt told SiriusXM. “Just rattling off one or two each week is a good feeling obviously. There’s just so much that goes into it, there’s games upfront with the d-line, there’s guys in the backend with such great coverage and the pass rush was just clicking for most of the year. I wish it translated to more wins for sure but towards the end of the season -- you get one game left, one and a half shy of the record -- that’s when you start to think about it. But there’s so much going on, you need to win games throughout the whole season. I wasn’t really thinking about it that much.”

Watt will look to add one more accolade to his 2021 campaign on Thursday night. The NFL will hold their annual awards ceremony, and that's when they will announce the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Watt has been on the door step the past two years, but Aaron Donald has stood in his way. That is likely to change this year.

Count Ben Roethlisberger as someone who thinks Watt deserves the award:

"I don't know who else is Defensive Player of the Year other than that guy.”

Do you think Watt has already proved he's worth his new contract extension? Click to comment below!

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