Upset that he had drawn a flag for a late hit on Cleveland Browns quarterback DeShone Kizer, T.J. Watt wanted to make up for his “dumb penalty.”
On the next play, the Steelers' first-round draft pick intercepted a pass.
“It just so happened to work out,” Watt said. “Perfect timing.”
Watt had a dynamic debut, recording six tackles (five solo), two sacks for minus-11 yards and the interception in the Steelers' 21-18 victory over the Browns on Sunday.
“I thought T.J. got off to a really good start, in terms of his first regular-season game,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said.
Just how good? Watt is the first Steelers player with two sacks in his NFL debut since it became an official statistic in 1982 and only the third player in NFL history with two sacks and an interception in his pro debut.
“I'm not complaining at all,” Watt said, “but, at the same time, there were a lot of plays left out on the table that I should've made.
“I'm never satisfied with my performance. We'll go back and look at the film and see where I can make corrections and (could) have gotten better.”
Admit it: It crossed your mind that Watt was more productive in his first NFL game than Jarvis Jones was in his entire tenure with the Steelers.
And you wouldn't be all that wrong.
Watt was better in the opener than Jones was in his entire rookie season in 2013, when he had one sack and no interceptions. Jones had only six sacks and two picks in four years.
Consider the Steelers had an NFL-low 13 sacks through the first 10 games last season, and it's no wonder they invested another first-round pick in a pass-rushing outside linebacker.
Can't ask for much more, right?
“The crazy thing is, you could,” Steelers defensive end Cameron Heyward said. “But he can continue to grow and keep getting better from here. It's more impressive just to get it, in general. But he's a hungry, intelligent kid that's just going to get better with time.”
Most impressive was that Watt did it against Browns left tackle Joe Thomas, a 10-time Pro Bowl pick and seven-time first-team All-Pro — although the rookie Kizer holding the ball too long partly was to blame.
“(Watt) had that pick and some good rushes against one of the best tackles in the league,” Steelers left outside linebacker Anthony Chickillo said.
Added Watt: “Just going up against a guy with his honors — a perennial Pro Bowler — it was awesome to share the field with (Thomas).”
Watt got his first NFL sack early in the third quarter, dropping Kizer for an 8-yard loss to the Steelers 17 and celebrating with a sack dance. It forced the Browns to settle for a 24-yard field goal to cut it to 21-10.
On Cleveland's next possession, Watt sacked Kizer for a 3-yard loss but the Steelers followed with back-to-back penalties by cornerbacks Will Gay and Artie Burns. Watt later drew a personal foul for his late hit on Kizer, which gave the Browns a first-and-10 at the Steelers' 29.
“I saw he was down, and I don't know why, but I just kind of blacked out and went down with him,” Watt said. “It won't happen again.”
On the next play, the 6-foot-4, 252-pound Watt showed off his hands with a leaping grab to pick off Kizer. Watt, however, lamented that he left some plays on the field against the Browns at FirstEnergy Stadium.
“We did play well, and it felt like we were in the backfield all the time, but we have to finish plays,” Watt said. “There were a few sacks left out on the table, at least from my point of view.”
Not to mention sack dances.
“That's just trying to bring some energy,” Watt said. “It's just whatever comes to my mind. This is the job, but, at the end of the day, I love what I do.”
Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown (84) holds off Cleveland Browns linebacker Jabrill Peppers (22) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Ron Schwane)
Given Mike Tomlin's reluctance to use selected key Steelers very much in the preseason games -- and Le'Veon Bell not showing up until those were completed -- it was logical to figure that Sunday at Cleveland would be the rough equivalent of a fifth exhibition.
It was.
The focus of the offense, especially early, seemed to be punishing Bell for his holdout by limiting his involvement. When Bell did get the ball, he was mostly lousy: 13 touches for 47 total yards.
The only people more frustrated than Bell were his fantasy-league owners.
It wasn't a vintage day for quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. His passes too often went behind the target.
Only a truly remarkable performance by Antonio Brown (11 receptions for 182 yards) got Roethlisberger's numbers to a decent level. Brown adjusted to a few sub-par throws, and his catch late in the fourth quarter among a crowd of Browns got 38 critical yards and an even more crucial first down.
The "best offense in football" netted just 290 yards total, only 35 yards rushing and just 14 points. Not exactly "best."
The penalties were brutal -- although it's worth noting that the game, like most in the NFL, was horribly over-officiated.
The Steelers took 13 flags, costing them 144 yards. Four of the Steelers’ penalties were personal fouls for unnecessary roughness.
It was typical lack of discipline by a Tomlin team against a lesser foe. J.J. Wilcox's fourth-quarter personal foul was laughable: Wilcox's high hit couldn't prevent a Cleveland touchdown, and Wilcox left the field injured.
But a win is a win, albeit one the Steelers were a bit fortunate to get.
Entertainment value was minimal. The Steelers' touchdowns were scored by clunky white guys with no rhythm. NFL players are allowed to dance now, but no Steeler who got the opportunity could.
T.J. Watt tried, after a sack. He failed. Yuck.
Good thing Brown boogied in two new commercials last week, and on "The Tonight Show." There's a man who knows a dance from a dipstick.
So, the Steelers won, but it wasn't pretty. Talk-show callers will likely overreact with great fury, and thank God.
But the result makes Sunday a perfectly tolerable performance: Disappointing in some ways, but an acceptable stepping stone to better times given the stumbling blocks of the preseason.
The defense was decent, racking up seven sacks thanks to relentless pursuit and pressure but also because Cleveland rookie quarterback DeShone Kizer too often held onto the ball too long.
Watt got two sacks and an interception. If the rookie outside linebacker keeps that up, it's going to be hard to bench him for James Harrison at the season's midway point. But the Steelers will.
Anthony Chickillo, deputizing at outside 'backer for the injured (again) Bud Dupree, also had two sacks. He scored the game's first touchdown when he recovered Tyler Matakevich’s blocked punt.
Without that early special-teams TD, do the Steelers win?
Luckily, they didn't have to find out.
The performance of newly-acquired cornerback Joe Haden couldn’t be called good or bad. That’s a huge improvement over Ross Cockrell. The secondary wasn’t a dumpster fire and that, too, is a big upgrade.
No one's performance is to be condemned, especially after a win. You play to win the game, as a coach with a .422 winning percentage once said.
The Steelers won the game. The Steelers are a good team, and will play much better. They know what they have, and where they’re at.
Same with Bell. He’s the NFL's best running back. It’s just a matter of time until Bell again plays like it.
Bell just needs to stop rapping. Not because his rap career necessarily detracts from football. But because Bell is awful at it.
Mark Madden hosts a radio show 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WXDX-FM (105.9).
Cleveland Browns quarterback DeShone Kizer runs the ball against the New York Giants in the first half at FirstEnergy Stadium. (Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- DeShone Kizer sat in the Notre Dame quarterback room with his new offensive coordinator Mike Sanford and was completely lost.
His girlfriend, Elli Thatcher, was lying in a hospital bed 271 miles away in Columbus after having a baseball-sized tumor removed from her neck. Kizer, mentally and physically drained from driving and back forth, was third on the Notre Dame depth chart and had just flamed out on cable television in the 2015 spring game.
He decided he might want to quit football, and try college baseball instead. He barely knew Coach Sanford at that point, but he opened up and broke down.
"It was a low point for him,'' said Sanford. "He was really confused and didn't know what to do."
Sanford laid out a plan for Kizer to rededicate himself to football, and Kizer completely bought in.
"When his number was called because of someone else's misfortune, he was ready for it,'' said Sanford. "And the rest is history. Everything he's been through has prepared him for this moment, to be the starting quarterback of the Cleveland Browns."
A different kind of kid
The raising of DeShone Kizer into a potential franchise quarterback, as Hue Jackson describes it, began in Toledo, Ohio, about 100 miles west of Cleveland. The second of four children, Kizer is the son of Derek, a police officer, and Mindy, a court bailiff. Together, they ran a tight ship full of family, academics and sports.
From very early on, Kizer was destined to be a college athlete and possibly a professional one. His dad played basketball at Bowling Green from 1987-91, and went on to play for a season in France. His mom was a three-sport athlete at Toledo's Clyde High and ran track at the University of Toledo.
The Kizers were a hoops family first and foremost, but Derek coached his son in multiple sports, including rec league and AAU basketball from third to seventh grade. From early on, they could tell DeShone was something special, and pushed him hard, both with a ball in his hands and with a pencil.
In sixth grade, he won a spelling bee with the word ''junco."
"I have a lot of nerd in me," he says.
Kizer also discovered at a young age that he was different from most of his peers.
"As a biracial kid growing up in west Toledo, I never really had a select group of guys or girls where I was truly accepted,'' he said. "I either had a different skin tone than the people I was hanging out with on one side, or I was talking too proper for the people that I was hanging out with on the other side."
The differences became more pronounced when he attended Toledo's Central Catholic High School, where he toggled between the rich, suburban kids and his neighborhood friends in the heart of Toledo.
"I was hanging out with my best friends at the top country clubs in the area, but also going back home and playing basketball and hanging out with guys who were not as privileged enough to be going to those same country clubs,'' he said. "It was a blessing in that I was able to relate to a bunch of different styles of people, but also a curse in the sense that I never really felt as if I was like everyone else in the community."
Instead of trying to fit in, Kizer embraced his differences. He listened to country when everyone was into rap. In middle school, when his friends were in T-shirts, shorts and tennis shoes, he wore a shirt and tie to school every day.
"I was trying to do whatever I could to be the valedictorian of my eighth grade,'' he said. "I was probably the nerdiest guy in the school at the time."
With a police officer for a father and a court bailiff for a mother, Kizer had no margin for error.
"They never would've been able to pull the wool over our eyes," said Derek. "We've seen too much. DeShone was the one who would go pick his friends up if they got in trouble."
The message to Kizer and his siblings was the same one handed down by Derek's parents. "You represent the lineage of your last name," he said. "You represent the family and your community. Don't embarrass the family."
From his parents, Kizer also learned a profound sense of community.
"My dad could go get a master's or whatever he wanted, but instead he spent all of his time protecting my community and helping the youth in Toledo," Kizer said. "It's his mission to put kids in a position where they can go do more just like I was able to and not end up on the streets."
Derek's story drives his son every day and reminds him of his roots.
"He didn't have much growing up,'' said Kizer. "What he did have was a ball and an opportunity and he made the most of it. ... He never boasted about his basketball career. I had to get those stories from everyone else."
When Kizer was in elementary school, his dad sat him down and told him the same thing his father had told him. You have two choices after high school: Find a way to pay for college; or join the military. Kizer had no desire to shoot or be shot. So college was the plan, and sports would be his meal ticket.
"But we were very geared first toward the education portion," said Derek. "For them to be able to participate in sports, grades came first."
In the Kizer household, everything was earned, not given. Once, when Kizer lost his wallet at Notre Dame and the $170 that was in it, his parents made him come home over break and earn it back by helping to build a deck, mowing the lawn and laying down some sod.
"I thought my parents would be upset that someone who picked up my wallet didn't return it and I never got a call,'' said Kizer. "Instead, they were more upset with me that I lost my wallet. They made me work for every dime that was in there."
Toledo Central Catholic beckons
Kizer's high school football coach, Greg Dempsey, now the athletic director at Central Catholic, was blown away by the eighth-grade Kizer, who was carefully deciding where to attend high school.
"He wasn't intimidated talking to a varsity football coach," he said. "He'd ask questions, expand upon answers. It wasn't normal for a kid his age."
Initially, Derek thought his son would follow in his footsteps and play mid-major Division I college basketball, but "things changed and he found his niche and followed his heart.''
He also followed the bright lights of big-time college football.
"He knew after about his freshman year that he wanted to play on the biggest stage on the college level," said Derek. "He knew based on his recruitment that football was going to be his biggest avenue, so he put his focus on that."
Kizer still starred in three sports in high school, leading the varsity basketball team to the Ohio Division II Final Four as a freshman point guard -- at 6-5, 230 pounds -- and playing outfield and hitting cleanup on the baseball team.
"As time went on, it became apparent that he could go big-time in football," said Dempsey. "I still have coaches mad at me that I didn't start him as a freshman."
By the time Kizer was a sophomore, Dempsey knew he had a phenom on his hands.
"One day, the coaches were sitting in the office talking after practice,'' said Dempsey. "I said 'Fellas, I've never coached one so I can't say for sure, but I have to imagine this is what NFL quarterbacks look like as a sophomore in high school.'"
His junior year, Kizer led the Central Catholic Fighting Irish to a 14-1 record and the Division II state title, the school's first since 2005. As a senior, his team went 12-0 but lost in the playoffs. Still, Kizer threw for 30 touchdowns and 6 interceptions that year, and rushed for 539 yards and 6 TDs.
"He was something to see,'' said Dempsey.
With a dual-threat superstar on his hands, Dempsey learned the spread offense from then-University of Toledo head coach Matt Campbell.
"We needed to utilize DeShone's talents,'' said Dempsey. "We threw more and more every year he played. He was able to throw it on the run downfield 40-50 yards. He had a rifle."
Fans came out in droves, and so did college coaches.
"It was a spectacle," said Dempsey. "I'd never seen anything like it. Almost all of the biggest colleges in the country came to watch him throw. The scrutiny they put a QB under was intense, and he handled it really well.''
They came from Notre Dame, LSU, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, North Carolina, Arkansas -- you name it.
"It was a Who's Who of college football,'' said Dempsey. "The Big Ten all offered."
LSU and Alabama were leading the way at one point, but Kizer felt the tug of Notre Dame, not just for the football but the education.
"He wasn't happy with how he threw the day Notre Dame was there," Dempsey said. "He called them and said, 'You've guys have got to stop back in and watch me throw again.' They came back out and he did really well and they said, 'Get to campus this Sunday because we're moving on this.'
"The Kizers were so impressed they canceled their last visit to another school."
Said Derek: "Our thing was academics first, then football and then proximity. We wanted to watch him play in person."
Despite his football status, Kizer was much more than just a sports star at Central Catholic. He was in student government, and on the Sideline Spirit team which organized pep rallies for football and basketball games.
"I was a geek," said Kizer.
He was also one of five finalists for "Super Fella'' at the Sadie Hawkins Dance, delivering a compelling speech and ripping off his buttoned-down shirt to reveal a cutoff Superman T-shirt.
"I won, but DeShone put on a good show,'' said his long-time best friend Ryan O'Hearn, who plays baseball at Hillsdale College in Michigan. Kizer's intelligence, both on the field and in the classroom, were evident back then.
"He helped me with my physics and chemistry," said O'Hearn. "And when I say he helped me, we'll just leave it at that."
On to Notre Dame
Kizer redshirted his freshman year, and then became preoccupied with his girlfriend's cancer during spring ball. Thatcher, his high school sweetheart from Toledo, discovered the tumor near the base of her skull in the spring of 2015 while attending Ohio State. She called Kizer out of a study session to deliver the news: The tumor would have to be removed.
At 19, Kizer made the 271-mile trek to Columbus almost every weekend. He also contributed to Thatcher's blog.
"Although my physical presence is out on the practice field and in the meeting room, my mind never leaves her," he wrote in an entry on March 25. "I thought that maybe football would be my getaway, but in all honestly it becomes some of the worst times of sadness."
Thatcher had surgery two days before the spring game that year, with Kizer by her side. But the procedure took longer than expected -- 17 hours -- and he dragged himself back to South Bend for the game, during which Everett Golson and Malik Zaire battled for the starting job.
"DeShone had an absolutely horrible spring game,'' recalled Sanford. "He went in for some garbage time and it was just not good."
Kizer completed one of five attempts for three yards and was sacked for a safety. His struggles were captured on NBC Sports Network for all fans to see.
"After that, he just felt like, 'What does my future look like with this sport?'" said Sanford, who received a postgame text from Kizer saying he has hit rock bottom. "He seriously contemplated quitting and playing college baseball."
Sanford, now the head football coach at Western Kentucky, laid out a plan for Kizer that included transforming body and mind. He and Thatcher eventually parted as friends, and Kizer rededicated himself to the game.
"For 2 1/2 months, he literally only ate chicken, rice and vegetables and came back into the 2015 summer camp with a completely different body-type and mindset,'' said Sanford. "He outplayed Malik Zaire in training camp some of the days that we had. Malik started the opener against Texas and played well, but DeShone was fully ready to go when his name was called upon in that Virginia game.''
With the Irish leading Virginia 19-14 late in the third quarter, Zaire broke his ankle, and Kizer entered as a redshirt freshman. He handed off to a running back on his first play for a TD and then threw the game-winning 39-yard TD pass to Will Fuller with 12 seconds remaining.
"The rest of that season is history," said Sanford.
With Zaire out for the season and Golson transferred to Florida State, Kizer led the Irish on a wild ride, going 8-3 as a starter. The season ended in the Fiesta Bowl with a 44-28 loss to a star-studded Ohio State team.
Along the way, threw for 2,880 yards and 21 TDs, and rushed for 525 yards and 10 more scores. In a 42-30 victory over Pitt, he accounted for all six TDs -- five passing and one rushing.
"He was truly a competitive, win-at-all-costs, take hits, throw-the-ball-under-duress quarterback,'' said Sanford. "You could tell him something once, and he got it. I loved going into battle with him. He showed in that Virginia game and throughout that season that he had the drive and toughness to be a championship-level quarterback."
Not so fast
When Kizer returned for spring football in 2016, Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly made him compete for the starting job with a healthy Zaire. They platooned in the opening game against Texas.
"It was a hard situation for everybody involved," said Sanford. "In 2015 Malik Zaire played lights-out against Texas. Statistically he had one of the best days for a QB in the history of ND football. For him to lose his job the next week for the remainder of his career, that's a hard situation to navigate for coach Kelly, myself, DeShone and Malik.''
Kizer briefly beat out Zaire, but was benched in October during a lost season. The sideline tension between Kizer and Kelly was well-documented, and the Irish finished with one of the worst records in school history at 4-8.
But Sanford attributes the bad year in part to six players getting arrested a week before the opener and their defensive coordinator being let go a quarter into the season. The Irish also graduated most of their star receivers.
"It was a year of adversity for every single one of us,'' Sanford said. "We all had our hand in us going 4-8.''
In retrospect, Sanford believes the down year will serve Kizer better than the success of 2015.
"Life in the NFL is not going to be 16-0 every year,'' he said.
At the NFL Combine in February, Kizer owned the record, saying 4-8 and everything he endured that year was his "biggest advantage."
Seeing red in the Green Room
Kizer bolted Notre Dame with two years of eligibility remaining. Kelly made clear his opinion that Kizer wasn't ready for the NFL, either on or off the field. He did offer that Kizer had the "most upside" of the draft-eligible QBs, but the NFL may have listened to the first part.
Kizer went to Philadelphia for the NFL Draft, and sat in the green room with his family, Kelly and Dempsey, his high school coach. The first round came and went with only three QBs off the board: Mitch Trubisky at No. 2, Patrick Mahomes at No. 10 and Deshaun Watson at No. 12.
"It was tough to have to watch him go through it,'' said Dempsey. "He was one of two players there who didn't get drafted in the first round."
Derek and Mindy stepped in and set him straight.
"We said, 'This is not your funeral. This not execution day. There's another day,'" recalled Derek. "'You will go to the NFL, just not when you wanted to.'"
The Kizers went back to Toledo and hosted a party at a downtown hotel. When the call came from the Browns at No. 52, tears flowed throughout the room.
"He was ecstatic,'' said Derek. "It was a dream come true. Early on in the draft process, he said, 'How great would it be for me to be drafted by the Cleveland Browns?' Lo and behold, they call him. He was like, 'Dad, it's the Cleveland Browns,' and we were like 'Oh my goodness!'"
Derek, the son of rabid Browns fans, had favored the Eagles because of a comparison to former Eagles receiver Harold Carmichael as a youngster, but his extended family still bleeds orange and brown.
"My mom (Shirley Kizer) is enjoying every minute of it,'' said Derek. "It's surreal to have her for her name, and her grandson's name, on the back of a Cleveland Browns jersey.''
As at Notre Dame, Kizer had to fight for the job in Cleveland. Finally, after the third preseason game, he won it over Brock Osweiler and Cody Kessler with his rocket arm, nimble feet and computer-like processing speed. He called his parents and asked them to both get on the phone.
"I get goosebumps thinking about it,'' said Derek. "His mom's mouth dropped and we tried to play it cool, like 'We knew that. We expected it.'"
Kizer makes his debut Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium against the Steelers. He's determined to be the last Browns quarterback's name that veteran left tackle Joe Thomas ever has to remember. He also hopes that the famous Browns jersey with all the QB names since 1999 won't go out of style for a long, long time now that his has been added.
"You see that list grow and grow and grow," Kizer said. "You hear people and the chatter throughout my whole community. Now to be on that list and hopefully end that list will be an awesome situation for me."
He also plans to do whatever it takes to make sure he never again feels the hurt felt in the green room.
Last season after watching Kizer rip the ball through the icy winds in South Bend against Virginia Tech, Sanford told a Browns scout that Kizer was the man for them -- one who could handle the gusts coming off Lake Erie and the rugged AFC North defenses.
"He has right body type to handle everything that comes with NFL, particularly in the northern divisions,'' said Sanford, who coached Andrew Luck at Stanford. "And he's got some similarities to the guy that's going to play quarterback for Pittsburgh -- the body-type, the athleticism, the toughness, ability to improvise outside the pocket.''
Sanford also knows first-hand from that day in the Notre Dame QB room that Kizer has been through enough adversity to handle the demands of the position.
"I think Cleveland is going to be very happy with their new quarterback,'' he said.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- T.J. Watt is a quick study. Growing up in a household with two older brothers, he didn't really have a choice. Adapt or get left behind. Quickly.
Those childhood habits die hard for the Pittsburgh Steelers rookie linebacker. His mother Connie taught her boys about organization. Older brother Derek espoused the virtue of cramming spiral notebooks with information during their days together at Wisconsin, a habit T.J. embraced, one that helped fuel the transition from reserve college tight end to NFL starter on the other side of the ball in a span of three years.
''(Derek) said 'I write everything down,''' T.J. Watt said. ''Coaches were always like, 'Man, your brother is taking a bunch of notes.' So I take notes every day.''
That's not the only writing Watt does. Before he began his first season with the Steelers, he jotted down a list of goals. Some of them were small. One of them was not: be out there with the ones when Pittsburgh opened the season on Sept. 10 in Cleveland.
Done.
When Watt's No. 90 runs out of the tunnel on Sunday against the Browns, he'll be the first rookie outside linebacker to start in an opener for the Steelers since Aaron Jones in 1988. Five-time Pro Bowl teammate James Harrison didn't do it. Neither did Joey Porter, now Watt's position coach. Lamar Woodley and Jason Gildon, too.
Watt had the job from the moment Pittsburgh grabbed him with the 30th overall pick in the draft. ''Day zero'' as coach Mike Tomlin called it. Yet Tomlin never passed that information along to Watt, who probably would have ignored it anyway.
''I just came out here every day, working my butt off,'' Watt said. ''Just doing whatever they ask me to do.''
One thing they're not asking Watt to do? Become a smaller version of oldest brother J.J. Different positions. Different expectations. And far different personalities.
J.J., the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year for the Houston Texans, is a 6-foot-5 livewire who's nearly as quick with his mouth as he is with his feet, and is in the middle of a career that could be on its way to the Hall of Fame.
T.J. is ... not that. Oh, he's fast enough. You don't collect sacks on consecutive snaps of your first professional game if you're slow. Yet that's where the similarities end. The youngest of the three Watt brothers in the NFL (Derek plays fullback for the Chargers) is also the quietest.
''He didn't want to come in and do a lot of talking,'' veteran Steelers linebacker Arthur Moats said. ''He just wanted his play to speak for itself. Even in meeting rooms he's quiet. He still is. You could just tell he's always listening, always learning.''
It's the path Watt needed to take. He flipped from tight end to linebacker in the middle of his collegiate career, a move that forced him to rethink the way he approaches football. That's where the note taking Derek championed became more than a habit, it became a lifeline.
''I believe if you write it down it's more likely to stick in the memory,'' Watt said.
Judging by Watt's performance during his first few months on the job, his memory may border on photographic. Porter and inside linebackers coach Jerry Olsavsky keep track of errors during practice and games, everything from missed assignments to missed tackles. The number of times Watt was dinged for a misstep in training camp wasn't just low for a rookie, they were low, period.
''During the pre-snap, he's not flustered,'' Moats said. ''He's ready to play the game.''
The proof was immediately apparent to Steelers left tackle Alejandro Villanueva, who spent much of the late spring and summer trying to fend Watt's rapidly expanding repertoire of moves.
''He knows exactly where he's supposed to be,'' Villanueva said. ''He knows exactly what he's supposed to do and when the ball is snapped he doesn't think there's anything preventing him from making the play. When you have that approach as a defensive player, you become more dangerous.''
The Steelers need Watt and fellow outside linebacker Bud Dupree to be dangerous to help them return to the playoffs for a fourth consecutive season. It's one of the reasons Tomlin made Watt a starter from the jump, so Watt and Dupree could develop a level of comfort together. The first real test awaits against the Browns, and Watt will find himself lined up opposite perennial Pro Bowl left tackle Joe Thomas.
Watt is looking forward to the challenge, though don't expect him to start texting J.J. for a cheat sheet. For one, J.J. is busy getting the Texans ready for their own opener while raising tens of millions of dollars for Hurricane Harvey relief. For another, this Watt is eager to forge his own identity.
''I'm a professional now,'' he said. "At the end of the day, I can't always rely on my brother and I never really have.''
NOTES: Backup T Jerald Hawkins (knee) was limited in practice. ... S Mike Mitchell, slowed by a lower-body injury during the preseason, was a full participant.
---
For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFL
Ben Roethlisberger #7 of the Pittsburgh Steelers directs the offense against the Indianapolis Colts during a preseason game on August 26, 2017 at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.(Justin K. Aller/Getty Images North America)
When the Steelers started the first half with as many losses as wins last season, Ben Roethlisberger offered a two-word solution.
“Follow me.”
After contemplating retirement in the offseason, Roethlisberger says he had a singular motivation for returning for his 14th season.
“Winning.”
What he wants to win is never in question, and not just the opener Sunday at the Cleveland Browns — against whom Roethlisberger owns a 21-2 career record.
It's Super Bowl-or-bust with the Steelers, which is why Roethlisberger's role on this team has never been more important.
Not just as the franchise quarterback, but as a team captain for the ninth time. That's something Big Ben calls an honor, one he's taking more seriously than ever.
“The rich tradition and history that's here, I don't take that lightly,” Roethlisberger said. “That means a lot to me. I want to be a leader, both on and off the field. That's in the locker room, just any way that I can be, so I have to try and step up when it comes to that.”
Roethlisberger isn't just talking the talk. His locker is now surrounded by rookies. To the left is first-round pick T.J. Watt; to the right are third-rounder James Conner and second-rounder JuJu Smith-Schuster.
“It was kind of twofold,” Roethlisberger said. “One, I wanted those guys around so I could try to pass on some things that were passed on to me. And they're rookies, so I never anticipate them being at their locker very much so I can get more room.”
Big Ben was just joking, as he's long been surrounded by open lockers. Once a cautionary tale for boorish behavior, Roethlisberger is relishing this role as the old guard passing the torch to the next generation of Steelers stars, just as Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis did for him years ago.
“I know he did it for a lot of people,” Roethlisberger said, “but he was a guy that I was close to and enjoyed playing with and passed all of those things on to me.”
It's a reminder how Roethlisberger has gone from rookie to the team's most tenured player in what seems like the blink of an eye. It's also an indication Big Ben is closer to the twilight of his career than the start, and why it means so much to him to pass on what he calls “the Steeler tradition, the Steeler Way.”
“With T.J., being next to me, it's different. I can't talk to him about offensive things that I can talk to James and JuJu about,” Roethlisberger said. “But I just want to tell stories about guys that I played with, how we played and how we practiced, anything that I picked up along my way. ...
“I feel like they look at the old man — JuJu was 6 years old when I started (in the NFL) — and they're young guys that are impressionable and I want to pass on things that were passed on to me. I don't think they're just letting the old man talk. I think they're actually enjoying it.”
Watt certainly is, although the outside linebacker said he has learned more from Big Ben about how to be a pro, with tips to arrive early to meetings and pay attention to the little things “because that's what keeps you in this league a long time.”
“It means quite a bit to have someone who I've grown up watching, and (to) be able to sit next to him and have him share some wisdom is awesome,” Watt said.
“Just the hard work and dedication day to day, and that you can't win a Super Bowl by thinking about the Super Bowl right now. You have to take it day-by-day with that end goal in mind.”
It's nothing new to see for center Maurkice Pouncey, who believes Roethlisberger long has been a leader in the locker room.
“He took me under his wing early — I guess that's more of a center-quarterback thing — but he's always done a great job at being a leader,” Pouncey said.
“You could tell now that he's reaching out a little bit more to help the younger guys because he has younger players (around him). When he was here at first, he had a lot of older guys that helped him around the way. Now he has the younger guys, and it's only right for him to do that.”
And it's only right for the Steelers to start the season that way, with Roethlisberger reminding the rookies who to follow on their way to winning.
