J.J. Watt Discusses NFL Negotiations amid T.J.'s Contract Rumors, Absence from OTAs

The Pittsburgh Steelers still have plenty to figure out this offseason, and they could have a new situation on their hands regarding their star linebacker.

T.J. Watt missed OTAs on Wednesday as he awaits a new contract. His current deal is set to expire after this season, and he's set to make $21.050 million, far less than the standard for players of his caliber.

Amid his absence from the team's OTAs, his brother, former star defensive end J.J. Watt, gave a cryptic message on the Pat McAfee Show. While J.J. Watt didn't offer much about his brother, he could say a lot if he wanted to.

"I have a lot of information on that subject," J.J. Watt said. "That's not my subject to discuss."

J.J. Watt also discussed the market for defensive players as a whole, specifically talking about the contract dispute between the Cincinnati Bengals and Trey Hendrickson.

He spoke at length about the importance of paying players earlier rather than waiting.

“Taking care of your guys earlier does a few things for you,” he said. “Number one, it gets them locked in at a lower price, in the long run. I mean, you look at what prices are doing every single year, you get them locked in at a lower price. Number two, you’re keeping them happy, because even now — let’s say look at Trey Hendrickson situation — let’s say they pay him now. Now there’s all this resentment, there’s all this animosity, and, yeah, 40 million dollars or whatever it is cures a whole lot of that, and he’s gonna act like everything is great and everything is wonderful. But you just went through a whole bunch of time where there was some disrespect, where there was some hurt feelings, and now you’re gonna go back into a building and act like everything’s OK.

“If you take care of things early, especially when players want to take care of things earlier and say that they’ll take less money to take care of things earlier because it sets themselves up long term financially, do that. Because if you don’t do that, that’s when the problems start to arise, and now all of a sudden you say, ‘Hey, we have to kick this can down the road because of the way everything’s working out.’ You kick the can down the road, the can gets a whole lot bigger. And then the player says, ‘Well, the can’s a lot bigger now. Fill it up.’ And you don’t want to fill it up because you say, ‘Well, we have to pay all these other guys, We have to take care of these other things.’ It’s like, ‘Well, I wanted to fill the can way back down here when it was a little soup can. Now we got ourselves a garbage pail.’”

While T.J. Watt had a down year in 2024, he's still one of the best at his position and will have plenty of offers if the Steelers let him get to free agency next offseason.

If J.J. Watt was running things, he'd make sure his brother got a deal beofre the two sides allowed any resentment to build.