It would seem obvious that losing your best player is going to have a significant impact on how your team looks, but to watch how the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense has played both with and without T.J. Watt, it’s a bit hard to fathom.
Players like Minkah Fitzpatrick, Cameron Heyward, Larry Ogunjobi, and Myles Jack are naturally talented in a vacuum, independent of how a superstar’s presence like Watt affects how they are able to play against an offense. And yet the defense has been frequently spotty and sometimes outright bad in the four games since the reigning Defensive Player of the Year has been out.