Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt only played 10 snaps on the right side last season, as he\u2019s largely only played on the left with Alex Highsmith manning the right side.<\/p>\n
Watt admitted that the lack of side-to-side movement, which has become more of a trend in recent years, is due to his own obstinance. But with Patrick Graham coming on as defensive coordinator and implementing his own system Watt is embracing change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in the past, it\u2019s a little bit more of me being stubborn. I think this new system allows a lot of this built in, so I really can\u2019t say no. I have to move with it. A lot of us are interchangeable parts. You\u2019re not just learning your position. You have to learn the whole defensive front structure. We all are basically interchangeable; we do different things, so I think you\u2019re going to see a lot more movement out of not just me, but the whole front,\u201d Watt told reporters today via video from Post-Gazette Sports on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Steelers have experimented, albeit rarely, with Watt and Highsmith switching sides in the past. But it\u2019s only been a handful of snaps, and it hasn\u2019t been anything that\u2019s stuck as a legitimate part of the team\u2019s game plan. The reasoning is fairly simple \u2013 Highsmith explained a few years ago<\/a> that he has moves that work better on the right, while Watt has moves that work better on the left.<\/p>\n Because of that, it\u2019s easier to understand why Watt hasn\u2019t been as amenable to switching sides. But there are advantages, as offensive linemen would have to account for multiple rushers. Even if certain moves work better on one side, offensive linemen can still counter them the more they see them as the game goes on. Facing off against a different player can counteract that and keep the opposition on its toes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s interesting how Watt described the defensive front as \u201cinterchangeable.\u201d There have been hints of potential change over the past few weeks, with Domata Peko noting that Keeanu Benton can play anywhere<\/a> across the defensive line and Mike DeFabo believing the Steelers will be \u201cunique\u201d in their usage of Nick Herbig<\/a>.<\/p>\n With how the Steelers\u2019 defense has underperformed relative to its talent, change should be a positive thing. It certainly sounds as if Watt has bought into the idea of moving around more, and it\u2019s going to be interesting to see exactly how Graham utilizes the front seven to try and maximize the talent the Steelers have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt only played 10 snaps on the right side last season, as he\u2019s largely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[120504,349,31712,99,3793,3795],"class_list":["post-683233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-alex-highsmith","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-post-gazette","tag-sports","tag-t-j-watt","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}