PITTSBURGH — The Giants, before Monday night’s 26-18 loss, relished the chance to play against T.J. Watt.
When the topic of the best player on the Steelers was broached with Giants head coach Brian Daboll during the week in advance of the game, he raved about the Pittsburgh game-wrecking edge rusher.
“We could stay here for a long time talking about T.J. Watt,” Daboll said before the game. “He’s unbelievable. You watch his tape and all the turnovers that he has and the style that he plays with … I mean, he’s one of the best players in the league. He’s a dynamic football player. He’s a problem.’’
Watt was exactly that on Monday night. A big problem.
After having been neutralized in a first half that featured a terrific plan by the Giants as they moved a tight end to whatever side Watt lined up on to help the tackle, Watt blew the game up with a monstrous strip-sack of Giants quarterback Daniel Jones.
Watt recovered the fumble with the Giants in Pittsburgh territory trailing by eight points and driving with 2:59 remaining in the game.
The culprit on the play was not right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor, whom Watt raced past to get to Jones.
It was Jones, who was supposed to call for tight end Theo Johnson to shift to the right side to help Eluemunor, who was anticipating chip help on the side.
And just like that, the Giants comeback was thwarted.
“We had a shift with the tight end to get back over to Watt and we didn’t get the shift,” Daboll said afterward. “We talked about it. DJ feels terrible. He was kind of surveying the coverage, deciding what he wanted to do and we didn’t get the shift.’’
Jones, after the game, owned it.
“I needed to shift,” he said. “Theo was looking at the coverage and I didn’t shift him and Jermaine expected me chip, and he didn’t get that. That’s my fault.”
Watt, who was quiet in the first half when he was properly chipped by tight ends, finished with two sacks, seven tackles and two quarterback hits.
“I saw the tight end over with me and I saw [Watt] one on one with [Eluemunor] and thought, ‘He’s about to make a play,’ and he did,” Steelers linebacker Alex Highsmith said. “He got the ball. That’s what he does. That’s why he’s the best in the world.”
Watt entered the game having gone the previous two games without a sack, so surely, as a player who had more than 100 career sacks, he was hungry.
“The thing with T.J. is he can lull you to sleep and you’re thinking after a few good reps against him and then, out of nowhere, he can hit you with that crazy-ass move that you weren’t expecting and then he’s forcing a fumble or making an interception or banging a strip-sack,” Eluemunor said before the game. “So, as a tackle it’s your job to keep that from happening and keep him out of the game.”
Jones wasn’t sacked once in the first half, but was taken down four times in the second half for losses of 27 yards.
“I’m not surprised by it,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said of Watt’s monster second half. “That doesn’t mean that it’s not appreciated. I just come to expect it because he’s got a unique talent. That usually produces unique results.”
