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Pro Football Focus revealed their All-Pro team on Monday, and T.J. Watt somehow was named as a second-team edge rusher behind Myles Garrett. Watt finished the season leading the league in sacks with 22.5, which tied Michael Strahan for the NFL single-season record. But he's second-team to Garrett, who had 16 sacks ... OK.
If you want to say sacks are not everything, Watt still had more tackles for loss (21) and quarterback hits (39) than Garrett. Garrett had 17 tackles for loss and 33 quarterback hits. For the second consecutive year, Watt led the league in sacks (22.5) and tackles for loss (21).
PFF's explanation of why they had Garrett as first-team over Watt was just bizarre also, as they cited the fact that Garrett played against Ben Roethlisberger twice and he averages 2.15 seconds to throw.
"Garrett boasts the best PFF pass-rushing grade of any edge rusher in the league this year (92.7). He recorded 78 pressures, which isn’t the most in the NFL, but he also twice faced Ben Roethlisberger’s 2.15-second average time to throw," Sam Monson of PFF wrote. "Garrett did lead the league in winning pass-rush reps that didn’t result in pressure due to early throws. He had 56 such plays, and his 25.7% pass-rush win rate was tied for the second-best mark among edge rushers. Watt tied Michael Strahan’s single-season sack record in Week 18 and put together a remarkable statistical season. Twenty-two of his 63 pressures (eighth among edge rushers) were sacks, a rare conversion rate that is not solely attributed to the individual rusher.
Garrett is a great player, but he did not have a better season than Watt. I mean, it's not even close. It seems like PFF is just trying to get clicks.
Pro Football Talk got it right and named T.J. Watt as their Defensive Player of the Year. Watt should be a lock for the award, unless the Associated Press just completely robs him for the second consecutive year.