The Offseason Lie – The JJ Watt Story

Photo by Bob Levey 

Former Houston Texans defensive end JJ Watt had played his entire career in Houston prior to his release a few weeks ago. From there, the sweepstakes were on to sign the future Hall of Famer. 

Some of the reported teams included: the Cleveland Browns, the Green Bay Packers, Indianapolis Colts, and Buffalo Bills. None of the reported teams signed Watt. Instead, he decided to sign with the Arizona Cardinals.

While he was a free agent, he reported that he will take his time to pick his new team, but it will be a contender, but I think that was all just a lie.

 So hear me out, JJ Watt has an ego, what? Yes I said what I said, and I know what you’re saying, But he is such a nice guy, look at all of the charity work that he does, and while it is a righteous thing to do, it doesn’t erase an ego nor mean someone is a bad person. I am by no means calling JJ Watt a bad person, we good now, that cleared up, yes, good. 

But I am glad someone brought up his charity work because to me that plays to his ego as well. While I believe some of his reasons for all of the charity is because he is a good guy, I also believe that the other parts are so he can grow his name and have it out everywhere. So while I do believe that JJ is a good person I believe that he has a giant ego like a lot of football players, but I know what you’re asking, what does this have to do with his free agency?

 So after he signed with the Cardinals it was reported that both the Browns and Colts offered him more money, which made a lot of people wonder why he chose the Cardinals over them, then a couple of hours later it was revealed that the Browns and Colts  did not. So where am I getting at with this? 

Well, I believe it was because of his ego that he chose the Cardinals over teams with much more upside. The Cardinals are arguably the hardest division in football, going up against the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams, and Seattle Seahawks. 

The fact that the Cardinals lost four of six games in the division last year, and both the 49ers and Rams will most likely get better this offseason with the Rams getting Matthew Stafford and the 49ers not being completely injured, and the biggest reason why everyone thinks this was a play by JJ is that the Cardinals are considered to be the worst team in the division. 

Now I know what you’re saying, he must think that the Cardinals are a special team then and he sees something in them. Remember how I said earlier that this was a pure ego move? The way I see it is JJ wanted to sign with a team that is not a contender just yet; if they suddenly start doing well, he can be told as the one that put them over and no one. 

Both the Browns and the Colts had a lot more cap space and could have signed more big names on defense, and that would not be good for JJ, it would mean that he wouldn’t get all of the credit. 

So in the end I think that this JJ Watt free agency was a sham from the beginning, JJ never wanted to play for a contender, he just wanted to get paid a lot of money, and put a team over as a contender. If that doesn’t happen, he can blame it on the fact that he didn’t have the help. Let’s also not forget that not long after he signed with the Cardinals, a report came from an ex-Houston Coach that really turned down JJ’s character. 

Should someone take this with one hundred percent certainty; no, not at all.  However do remember there is always some truth to every rumor, it’s just trying to find it in all of the lies is the hard part. This whole story that JJ conducted was all to feed into his ego, to get him paid a lot of money, and get him in the position that he wanted, all while getting all of the attention on him.