How Good Can TJ Watt Be?

[flippy]

He's on pace statistically to hit or surpass all of James Harrison's numbers in hi MVP season except tackles where TJ is only on pace for about half.

One area that he is crushing Harrison is in QB hits where he's on pace for about 40 which is more than double James' average.


TJ's going to need a monster second half of the season to put up numbers like his brother JJ who got more tackles, more TFL, more sacks, and more QB hits consistently than Harrison. But I'm not sure it's out of the question, TJ could surpass all of his brother's numbers.


Wherever TJ lands, it's becoming clear that he can be DMVP. As long as Minkah doesn't keep making splash plays at his current pace

[Oviedo]

He can be an 20+ sack guy, but as I stated in another thread we need someone opposite him to play at the level Dupree is at now.

If not his numbers will drop

[hawaiiansteel]

TJ Watt Named AFC Defensive Player of the Month

[Iron City Inc.]

All Pro performance today.

[NorthCoast]

The bookends did an outstanding job with applying pressure but keeping Murray contained. This game was a good practice for the upcoming game against LJackson.
Can only dream what this defense would look like with a healthy Tuitt added in.

Oh, did you see who was chasing Murray a couple times he scrambled? ..... yea, that would be #97. Dude is balling it every bit was much as the LBs.

[Ernie]

All Pro performance today.

he and Bud are studs

[Buzz]

How good can TJ be? We're seeing it.

Sure hope there's some way we can keep our D intact after this season.

[Eddie Spaghetti]

he and Bud are studs

have to tag Dupree at this point

what a monster year he is having

[Northern_Blitz]

I hope all of our guys are good enough to be in contention for individual awards, but don't get the actual award.

That way, we have elite players but pay a little less come contract time.

[Iron City Inc.]

have to tag Dupree at this point

what a monster year he is having

I agree 100% provided we can't sign him to a reasonable contract. He may want to stay in town provided our offer is close enough to what he is expecting. The home town discount we all know is a thing of the past but you get my point. We need him to remain in B & G.

[Ernie]

I agree 100% provided we can't sign him to a reasonable contract. He may want to stay in town provided our offer is close enough to what he is expecting. The home town discount we all know is a thing of the past but you get my point. We need him to remain in B & G.

the hometown discount is indeed a thing of the past.. if it wasnt though... bud's not the first one id be asking to take that discount... the dude that had the season off and got paid 20% of the cap would be where id start.

[Eddie Spaghetti]

it's hilarious you want injured players to give money back to billionaire owners

come on dude

[Ernie]

it's hilarious you want injured players to give money back to billionaire owners

come on dude

whos asking players to give money back that theyve already been paid? LMAO!! Im not talking about money from this year eddie. im talking about a restructure (next few years)- so that we can keep this defense together. sorry you missed all of that.
restructuring ben has been discussed on here before

[Northern_Blitz]

the hometown discount is indeed a thing of the past.. if it wasnt though... bud's not the first one id be asking to take that discount... the dude that had the season off and got paid 20% of the cap would be where id start.

I think you can get "hometown discounts". But they aren't really discounts because of the hometown.

We still usually extend guys with one year left on their contract.

I think the idea behind doing that is that players can buy a bit of security a year early (that sweet, sweet signing bonus), at the cost of getting something below their FMV.

This doesn't apply to Bud though because we opted not to extend him last year (which was the right decision at the time IMO).

Signing with a year left means you're buying some insurance against catastrophic injury.

There's no real advantage from Bud's side to take less than market value because we don't really have any leverage. Unless we use the tag.

And if we use the tag, we have to have the cap room on the day we apply the tag. I'm not sure we'll get there. But Omar's a wizard, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[Northern_Blitz]

whos asking players to give money back that theyve already been paid? LMAO!! Im not talking about money from this year eddie. im talking about a restructure (next few years)- so that we can keep this defense together. sorry you missed all of that.
restructuring ben has been discussed on here before

Restructures typically take future salary and convert it into signing bonus.

The player gets the same amount of money in this case. It's better for them, because they get the money NOW instead of having to wait for game checks. This essentially converts non-guaranteed money into guaranteed money.

The benefit for the team is that "new" bonus money can be spread out over the rest of the deal.

I can't remember cases where a player earned less in a restructure (although I'm sure it has happened sometime).

Ben's not all that great a candidate for a restructure because he only has one year left after next year.

If they do a restructure, they can turn a bunch of his salary next year into a bonus. But that means it gets spread over the remaining years after next season. Since that's only one year, it probably means he'd have something like a $50M cap hit in his final year.

Maybe that's worth it if we win next year, but it probably means we have to blow up the D the next year. Not sure how we sign TJ and Fitz (who I think is eligible for an extension and could reasonably push for one) when Ben counts for ~ 25% of the cap.

It will hurt, but I think Bud's probably gone.

Maybe you mean an extension instead of a restructure. This is what I'm currently hoping for too. Although I think it only works if Ben's willing to accept that his salary should eventually go down in the future because his performance will probably suffer.

I think our cap situation will be rough for the next two years. But I hope I'm wrong.