Big Brother was down. And Little Brother’s heart sank.
“I remember watching the game when it happened,” T.J. Watt told Serby Says by phone. “I was in [my] hotel room ’cause I was still in a hotel here in Pittsburgh, and I broke down when I saw him get hurt and I saw him get carried off the field, just because I knew first-hand what he went through to get back to what he wanted to get to last year, and then to see him get hurt, absolutely crushed me.
“To be honest with you, after that, he didn’t know for a while if he wanted to retire or not, but once he told me he wanted to really put everything he had into football again and work his way back, I had full belief in him that he would get back to where he wanted to be. And we had a lot of great conversations and visits throughout that time period where we just kind of motivated each other, picked each other up and got him back to where he is now.”
Where Big Brother is now — following back surgery that cost him most of 2016 and knee surgery that cost him most of 2017 — is back at the top of his game and top of his sport, even if he isn’t quite sure he is, the alpha male not just of the Watt household with younger NFL brothers Derek and T.J., but the alpha male of every NFL playing field on any given Sunday, the three-time Defensive Player of the Year and Comeback Player of the Year leader.
Big Brother is J.J. Watt, who has recorded eight sacks at a time when T.J. has emerged in his second season as an outside linebacker with the Steelers as a challenger to the throne himself with seven— Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald has 10.
J.J. was asked what the low point was for him away from the Texans, away from the game he loves like few others.
“It was definitely early on,” J.J. told The Post. “Right after the surgery, I wasn’t allowed to walk or move really much for two months. So I pretty much just had to sit on the couch for two months straight. That’s a lot of time. That’s a lot of time to think, it’s a lot of time to question things. There were days during that where you question yourself, you question what you’re gonna be able to do if you’re gonna be able to come back, and all those types of things.”
Were you worried?
“I don’t know if I’d say worried, but I definitely thought about it. I mean, I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t think about it. You always wonder, ’cause you never know. I broke my leg and messed up the cartilage so you never know if it’s gonna be possible. But then, you just take it one day at a time, you change your mentality and say, ‘OK, I am gonna do it.’ ”
The lionhearted Texan roars with delight as he feeds off the pregame energy of the home crowd. Asked if he plays in a rage, he chuckles.
“No, I don’t think so,” J.J. said. “I appreciate that it looks that way. It’s almost autopilot. When you put in the preparation, you put in the work, you’re ready to go, then your body just takes over on game day.
“I read a book called ‘The Talent Code,’ it’s one of my favorite books, and they talk about being in the zone, and what that means for an athlete, and that’s basically when your body is running at optimal levels but your mind actually isn’t thinking that much ’cause it already knows what to do because you practiced and prepared. That’s my ultimate goal is for me to not be thinking at all on the field — just to be letting it loose and playing.”
J.J. is 29. Derek, a fullback with the Chargers, turns 26 next week. T.J. is 24. All of them are proud Wisconsin Badgers.
“Our cul de sac we always had roller hockey going on, we had the big backyard, our neighbors had big backyards that connected all the backyards, and we had football, baseball, anything you can imagine,” T.J. said. “And then, in our basement, we had a real-size hockey net, we’d go down and shoot hockey before dinner. We had mini-hockey in the living room. We always were competing, no matter what it was, and it always ended up getting too rough and someone crying or someone getting a dead leg or dead arm, getting punched too hard and crying to Mom or Dad. … It was fun, though. It made us who we are today.”
Big Brother — now 6-foot-5, 295 pounds — was always the biggest brother. Derek is 6-foot-2, 234; T.J. 6-4, 251.
“[J.J.] definitely let you know he was the enforcer of the house as a brother, and he was gonna beat up on you if you got out of line, but he also looked out for us and just really wanted to set the right path to show us how to be successful and how to be a great man,” T.J. said.
J.J. is as proud of T. J. and Derek as T.J. is of him.
“He’s an animal,” J.J. said. “He’s a lot of fun to watch. He flies around. My favorite part about him is he can do so many different things. He’s great at rushing the passer, he’s really good at dropping into coverage, he can play the run, he can do all these different things, and he does it with this crazy intensity. He’s flying all over the field laying it on the line every play.”
Sounds like Big Brother.
“I don’t know if it’s a whole lot different,” J.J. says. “He just drops into coverage a little bit more so I guess that’s what’s different about it. He’s a little bit lighter than me, so he can run around a little bit more.”
Asked what makes Little Brother a pass rusher, J.J. said, “He’s quick, he’s got speed, he can also toss in a power move if he needs to. But he’s got a knack for getting to the ball.”
Their on-field mentalities are one and the same.
T.J.: “I’m just a badass. That’s the best way I can put it, is just a guy who wants to make plays on every single play, who wants to be the best player he can be for his team. And I truly believe that’s the best part about being on defense is you can make a play on every single down, you can bat a pass, you can get a [tackle for loss], you can get a sack, you can get an interception. You can do a multitude of things even when your number necessarily isn’t called like it is on offense, you have to wait for a pass to be thrown your way or the ball be handed to you. I just feel like at any given moment I can make a splash play.”
J.J.: “Try and make a play, every play. You never know which play’s gonna change a game. So I go out there, and I have the mentality that every play could change the game, so you have to give it everything you got.”
J.J. became the face of a humanitarian NFL when he helped raise $41.6 million for Hurricane Harvey victims in Houston.
“He made sure that the money was allocated in the right spots and got to the right people and took his time and didn’t rush the process and made sure that he got to get the money in the hands of as many people as possible so it impacted as many people as possible,” T.J. said.
Little Brother and Big Brother are very much alike.
“He’s very good at public speaking, those are things that I really want to acquire from him,” T.J. said. “He’s really good in the community. I’m more shy, he’s a little more outgoing than me. But other than that, we’re pretty similar. We both like the same stuff, we both dislike the same stuff, so it works out for a pretty good bond.”
Big Brother is proud of T.J.’s rise. Little Brother is proud of J.J.’s renaissance and resurgence.
“I think that anyone could have just thrown in the towel and no one really would have questioned him for throwing in the towel, but he decided to fight his way back, and he’s all the way back to the top of the mountain where he was, and to be able to see the guy overcome so many injuries in back-to-back years and do what he loves in the end and excel at it at the level that he’s playing right now, it’s a motivational story for me, it makes me want to go out and just be better each and every day, and I think that he also has gotten a lot more fans from his struggles that he’s overcome,” T.J. said.
T.J. recorded seven sacks as a rookie. He is more dangerous this season.
“More instinctual, more comfortable in the game,” he said. “Just feel like I have a better feel for what offenses are trying to do, how tackles are blocking, and I switched to the left side, and I feel more comfortable on that side.”
Big Brother loved that Little Brother is nipping at his heels in the sack race.
“It’s pretty wild,” J.J, said. “When we think back to playing football in the backyard, now we’re one sack apart in the NFL. It’s pretty hard to even comprehend.”
For both of them.
“It’s somewhere where I always wanted to be, I think,” T.J. said. “I never really thought it would actually come to fruition just because I’ve always seen him at the top of the leader board growing up, and I’ve always wanted obviously to play in the NFL, but I never pictured both being so dominant. And it’s just cool to be able to be at the top of the leader board with him. Obviously he’s got more than me right now, but the season’s still far from over, so hopefully I’ll make up my ground and catch him.”
No friendly wager, however.
“Maybe it’ll be bragging rights at the end of the season, but right now we’re just being supportive of one another and just being really grateful that we’re able to watch each other play and go out, do our thing each week,” T.J. said.
What drives Little Brother is what always drove Big Brother.
“Wanting to be great,” T.J. said. “Wanting to be one of the best. I think everyone wants to have a legacy. Obviously for me, I’ve grown up in the shadow of J.J., but he’ll always say he never wanted to paint us in that picture, he never wanted us to be in his shadow, but that’s just how it is. One day, I’ll be walking down the street and someone will say, ‘Hey that’s T.J. Watt,’ and they won’t say, ‘That’s J.J. Watt’s brother,’ and I think that’ll be the day where I’ll be able to say, ‘That was pretty cool.’
“I always joke with him that one day we’re gonna be walking next to each other and someone’s gonna recognize me and not him, and that’ll be the best day of my life.”