{"id":71214,"date":"2025-12-26T22:33:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T22:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/71214\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T22:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T22:33:06","slug":"pittsburgh-steelers-make-decision-on-lbs-status-vs-browns-on-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/71214\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers make decision on LB&#8217;s status vs. Browns on Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Steelers have officially ruled out All-Pro linebacker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/tj-watt-109594\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">T.J. Watt<\/a> (collapsed lung) for Sunday\u2019s game against the Cleveland Browns. He returned to practice this week, but will miss his third consecutive game.<\/p>\n<p>A win for Pittsburgh would clinch a postseason berth for the 11th time in the past 16 seasons. Even a loss by the Baltimore Ravens to the Green Bay Packers Sunday night would send the Steelers back to the AFC Playoffs.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Steelers ruled out LB T.J. Watt (lung) for Sunday vs. Cleveland.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TomPelissero\/status\/2004650589834404295?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 26, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Watt has played in 13 games this season. In his ninth NFL season, the four-time First Team All-Pro boasts 53 tackles, seven sacks, three forced fumbles, and two fumble recoveries. He was named to the Pro Bowl for the eighth time, but it remains up in the air whether he\u2019ll play or not. <\/p>\n<p>T.J. Watt has missed three straight games due to lung injury<\/p>\n<p>The Wisconsin alum remains well on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Across his nine year career, Watt has recorded 515 tackles, 115 sacks, 36 forced fumbles, 14 fumble recoveries, and eight interceptions. This season, Pittsburgh\u2019s defense allows 363.1 yards per game (fifth worst in NFL) and 23.3 points per game (17th best in NFL). <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s been in the facility yet, because I\u2019ve been in the dark room in the back,\u201d Steelers head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/mike-tomlin-132569\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Tomlin<\/a> said last week. \u201cHe might be in the facility as we speak, and so I don\u2019t have a lot of the answers to that, and I was just trying to be transparent when I said I didn\u2019t have any new information as I stood here today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Watt\u2019s brother, famed NFL defender\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/jj-watt-50438\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">J.J. Watt<\/a>, provided an update with some new information a as of earlier this month: \u201cYesterday TJ had successful surgery to stabilize and repair a partially collapsed lung suffered Wednesday after a dry needling treatment session at the facility,\u201d the retired former NFL star posted on X, formerly Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRecovery timeline is still TBD, but all went well and he is being released from the hospital today. He and his family are very appreciative of everyone\u2019s kind words and well wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On3\u2019s Nick Kosko contributed to this article.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers have officially ruled out All-Pro linebacker T.J. Watt (collapsed lung) for Sunday\u2019s game against the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74,27472],"class_list":["post-71214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-tj-watt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}