SCU’s 2021 Steelers Awards: Top highlight-reel performer
Steel City Underground presents our “Steelers Awards” to players on the Pittsburgh Steelers team that had outstanding performances throughout the 2021-22 NFL regular season.
In our final Steelers Awards for the 2021-22 NFL regular season, we chose a topic that seems a little outside of the normal realm of traditional football awards: top highlight-reel performer. In a way, this is a way to crown the Pittsburgh Steelers player we felt made such an MVP-level impact that he consistently got a lot of attention. This year, our award winner is AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year, T.J. Watt.
Watt, who has improved his stats every season since he was selected in the first round (30th overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft by the Steelers, had a record-setting outing in 2021. As a result, Watt – who had earned AP Defensive Player of the Year shares (votes) for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 NFL seasons – finally grabbed the number one spot from the Associated Press and set the new single-season franchise record for sacks and tied the NFL single-season franchise record at 22.5 with Michael Strahan (since sacks became an official stat in 1982).
While his sacks certainly were a big draw for highlight production, Watt added seven pass defenses, five forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries, 64 tackles, 21 tackles for a loss, and 39 quarterback hits. Watt missed time on the field due to injury, playing in just 15 regular-season games. Watt’s snap count was his lowest since his rookie season, at 758 or 73 percent of all snaps on defense.
Watt was named the AFC Defensive Player of the Week three times in 2021 (Week 6, Week 13, and Week 17). He was named All-Pro for the third consecutive season. Pro Football Writers (OLB), Associated Press (EDGE), and Sporting News (LB) all named Watt as a first-teamer. Pro Football Focus (PFF) named Watt as a second-teamer. Pro Football Writers also named Watt as first-team All-Conference (AFC).
Watt was creative in how he pressured opposing quarterbacks. He wasn’t always just running into the offensive backfield, fighting off holds by offensive linemen. There were times when he got vertical to knock down passing attempts. In essence, Watt was a nightmare and unpredictable.
This factored into our choice of Watt as SCU’s top highlight reel performer.
