After learning he wasn’t being named NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year, T.J. Watt posted a tweet on Thursday, presumably reacting to the news.
The winner hadn’t yet been revealed, so those five little words, “Nothing I’m not used to,” caused quite a stir.
On Friday night at Super Bowl media week, SB Nation’s JP Acosta asked Watt to clarify his remark.
I think that’s up for everybody to kind of debate It was just one of those things where people were seeing I wasn’t there. I wanted to let them know why I wasn’t there, and it was just a situation where it is something I’m truly used to at this point, so I’ll just use it as motivation going forward.
Watt was in familiar territory after finishing third in the 2019 voting and second in 2020 for Defensive Player of the Year. In 2021, he was finally named DPOY with 22.5 sacks (tied Michael Strahan, 2001).
Watt has every right to feel slighted. He led the league in sacks with 19.0 (the second-highest mark in a single season in his career), becoming the first player to do so on three separate occasions. He also finished top five in tackles for loss and forced fumbles.
He did everything in his power to play up to and beyond the standard of what’s deemed a Defensive Player of the Year, aside from excelling at some made-up stat (“pass rush win rate”) that the NFL doesn’t even track or count.
Watt produced more in nearly every statistical category than his counterpart, yet Garrett walked away with the coveted award with 24 votes over Watt’s 19.
Our own @acosta32_jp caught up with TJ Watt to get some clarity on the tweet he sent after losing Defensive Player of the Year pic.twitter.com/bBx4wjJkll
— SB Nation (@SBNation) February 10, 2024
