T.J. Watt won’t be on the field Sunday when the prominent NFL record he shares is potentially broken by a longtime rival.
The Pittsburgh Steelers ruled out Watt for Sunday’s game at the Cleveland Browns. Watt again was listed on the injury report as a partial practice participant Friday, which was 16 days removed from suffering a partially collapsed lung during a treatment at the team facility.
Watt returned to practice Wednesday and was listed as limited all week. He has not spoken publicly since his injury, which his brother J.J. said occurred during a “dry needling” session and left him in a hospital for two nights.
Coach Mike Tomlin has politely declined to offer much detail into Watt’s situation but said Tuesday that he expected Watt to speak on it soon. After practice Friday is typically Watt’s weekly occasion to hold a media scrum, but a Steelers staffer told reporters Watt would not speak Friday.
Watt in 2021 tied Michael Strahan’s NFL single-season record for sacks with 22 ½. (The NFL officially recognized the sack starting in 1982.) The Browns’ Myles Garrett has 22 sacks headed into Sunday, which will be Cleveland’s penultimate game of the season.
Garrett and Watt were first-round picks in the 2017 draft, and each is on a Hall of Fame trajectory. They rank 1-2 in the league in sacks since each entered the NFL, and they are No. 3 (Garrett, 124 ½) and No. 5 (Watt, 115) among active players overall.
Watt will be replaced at left outside linebacker in the Steelers’ starting lineup Sunday by Nick Herbig, who on Friday was given the official green light to play Sunday. Herbig missed this past Sunday’s win at the Detroit Lions because of a hamstring injury but practiced all week and was a full participant for the first time Friday.