The last “Argument” about Watt vs Garrett

Well with the top 100 players rankings coming out on NFL Network we all know Garrett will be ranked in the top five probably number 2 and Watt will be 15th or something. There are so many reasons we can point too for this. Anti Watt name bias, anti Steeler bias and or the most likely culprit PFF bias. The sad thing is actual Players and NFL executives buy into the PFF narrative as well because PFF has mastered the art just like the mainstream media of pushing a narrative and getting the public to buy into that narrative as gospel even if it goes against logic.

People are actually valuing Pass Rush Win rate more highly than an actual sack. It completely goes against all logic. Just like the mainstream media does if you go against the narrative your made to look stupid so people lazily buy into what PFF is pushing because they think there is some mysterious logic behind it and they will look stupid if they don’t support it.

Anybody who has watched the games of these two knows Watt is superior in nearly all categories too Garrett. Just watching the first Steelers/Browns game last year with the naked eye it was very evident who the superior player was just by the amount of splash plays and ultimately the game winning play. Yet PFF had scored Garrett much higher than Watt in that game even though Watt had significantly better stats across the board in that game.

We all know Watt has superior stats to Garrett. I will post below for comparison. But I am going to do an exercise to even the playing field and we will see how they match up.

General Stats

Tackles
Garrett 42 ... Watt 68

Tackle for loss
Garrett 17 ... Watt 19

Sacks
Garrett 14 ... Watt 19

Forced Fumble
Garrett 4 ... Watt 4

Fumble Recoveries
Garrett 1 ... Watt 3

Interceptions
Garrett 0 ... Watt 1

Passes Defensed
Garrett 3 ... Watt 8

Qb Pressures
Garrett 37 ... Watt 50

QB Knock Downs
Garrett 16 ... Watt 18

TD’s
Garrett 0 ... Watt 1

There is no way to grade one play over another play like a game winning td over a simple tackle for loss in the fourth quarter of a game with the game out of hand meaning essentially the latter had no impact on the outcome of the game, but for the purpose of trying to be black and white and scoring this numerically I simply added up the amount of plays each player made and compared the delta between two.

Garrett = 137 plays
Watt = 191 plays

Watt = 54 more net positive plays

* Keep in mind a couple of factors here. Garrett played on a significantly better defense last year than Watt. He had better DT’s to push the interior of the pocket, he had a comparable but a little lesser of an edge player across from him. He had better ILB play to support the run and intermidiate passing game. He had significantly better secondary play which made the QB hold onto the ball a bit longer allowing him more time to rush the QB. I would also argue coming from the QB’s blind side is advantageous in that in theory you should have an opportunity to get more sacks and in particular strip sacks because the QB can’t see you coming thus you are holding onto the ball.

In addition the Browns were a better team offensively which meant they were ahead more in games and in particular late in games which made the opposing teams offense much more predictable, meaning they were forced into passing the ball which means as an opposing edge defender you are in a predictable pass rush situation knowing you can just ping your ears back and rush the QB, yet Garrett was inferior to Watt in all statistical categories here.

Now add in the PFF metrics - which by no way objectively take into account certain players responsibilities on a given play so as a result when Watt lines up on the line of scrimmage at the start of a play and then drops into coverage per his assignment on that play ... PFF does not take that into consideration. PFF grades that play as an actual failed pass rush attempt according to their pass rush win rate analytics model. In addition PFF grades the double teams rate differently per Watt vs Garrett. Because Watt is considered to play OLB and he lines up wider than Garrett he often faces double teams either via the RT and TE or RT and RB or TE and RB or it is a chip by the TE or RB before they release for a pass. These quite often are not considered double teams on Watt even though he literally was blocked by two players. Garrett is often lined up in closer and he is considered a true DE and as a result of his alignment he is blocked sometimes bye a T and G or bye the T and TE or the T and RB. But because of his alignment it is considered a double team. So this is completely left up to the disgression of the PFF analyst and his judgment on the play as to what is constituted as a double team or not or what is constituted as a pass rush win or not without him having any knowledge of the defenders assignments on that play. No room for bias whatsoever here at all.

PFF Metrics

# of Plays
Garrett 269 ... Watt 296

Pass Rush Wins
Garrett 82 ... Watt 75

Pass Rush Win Rate %
Garrett 30% ... Watt 25%

Double Team %
Garrett 29% ... Watt 14%

Double Teams
Garrett 78 ... Watt 41

Garrett had 7 more pass rush wins. He had 37 more double teams.
If you add those up as a positive play over Watt (even though these are much more subjective) that equates to 42 more positive plays than Watt according to PFF. Its very hard to determine the impact of these positive plays on the actual play of the game compared to the actual quantifiable stats where Watt had a positive of 54 more plays over Garrett.

But for the sake of comparison lets weight the PFF metrics at the same level as actual stats.

Watt Actual Stats + 54
Garrett PFF Metrics + 42

The delta still equates to a plus 12 for Watt.

So even factoring PFF’s metrics along with actual stats and weighing them at the same level , Watt still produced 12 more plays than Garrett did last season.

The only argument you can make for Garrett in the midst of all of this is Watt had literally 27 more actual plays or chances (Watts 296 vs Garretts 269) to impact the game. When you factor in the 12 plus net plays that Watt had over Garrett and divide those by the 27 extra plays he had a chance at making an impact, it equates to a 44% success rate at making a play by Watt. Thats pretty phenomenal.

Take it a step further -
Watt 296 plays (chances) / 191 actual plays = 65%
Garrett 269 plays (chances) / 137 actual plays = 51%

That means Watt actually had some type of quantifiable impact meaning a sack, tackle, fumble recovery on 65% of his snaps. Garrett had an impact on 51% of his snaps. Watt had a 14% margin over Garrett. But you add in the 27 additional plays or chances Watt had over Garrett and the 44% success rate he had in those 27 plays it actually skews against Watt because is overall success rate on his total number of chances of 296 was 65% so theoretically the 44% success rate on the 27 additional chances Watt had wasn’t congruent with his overall 65% success rate so those 27 additional plays actually hurt Watt here and weren’t reflective of his overall success rate. What I’m saying here is the additional chances Watt had were actually negligible or in fact hurt Watt from a statistical perspective over Garrett so you can’t use that additional chances logic to support Watts better stats over Garretts because they were reflective of Watts overall success rate for the season.


Looking at the double teams narrative, if you add that 14% (delta success rate on plays) to Watts double team rate (to make it fair from an evaluation perspective), that puts him at 28% double teams and essentially tied with Garrett. But again the issue here is how they evaluate and judge double teams. It would be really interesting to have an unbiased evaluation done in that area and taking into consideration players alignment, players assignment and actual true double teams on the play.

So if you're going to argue in Garretts favor here you're going to lean on the double teams that Garrett gets verses what Watt gets but again those are subjective in what is actually a double team and what isn’t. Even so you apply the 14% additional plays that Watt made over Garrett and assume those get eliminated by Watt getting double teamed an additional 14% of the time that doesn’t mean Garrett is going to make up the 14% delta in production simply because he is double teamed at the same rate as Watt. The guy would still have to actually produce and make the play. This is where PFF truly makes assumptions and says yes if they were double teamed at the same rate Garrett would produce as much as Watt and they validate this argument by pushing the Pass Rush Win Rate narrative over all of the actual statistics that record actual bonafide plays.

Watt had five more sacks and Garrett had 7 more pass rush wins. Thats what it actually comes down to. They provide the same weight or in some cases more weight to a pass rush win than they do an actual sack. What we can never ever measure truly as a fan is the two metrics PFF hangs their hat on which is Pass Rush Win Rate and Double Teams. We can actually measure the real stats like sacks, forced fumbles, tackles etc. we can’t measure the PFF metrics, we just have to take their word for it.

So you tell me who the DPOY of the year should have been. Even if you devalue the additional production Watt had over Garrett because Garrett was double teamed more and you add 14% more double teams to Watt and take away 14% of his plus play delta over Garrett that essentially equates them to be equal according to PFF. What then constitutes Garrett being the better player and winning the DPOY award over Watt? When you factor in everything I just laid out they are essentially equal according to PFF. In that scenario the next logical step would be to at minimum look at actual stats and not what you would guess could be hypothetical production and what if’s. You have to by default look at the actual stats to be fair but that isn’t what PFF does here. They essentially are saying if Garrett were to be double teamed at the same rate that Watt actually was then Garrett would have had a better success rate per play meaning instead of a 51% success rate he would have over a 65% + success rate. This is what they are saying and it is all conjecture and projection. It isn’t based on truth or fact.

But it is the world we live in where we can identify as whatever we want and everyone else has to accept that so I guess it is fitting that subjective stats left up to interpretation are weighted more heavily than actual stats. It really does come down to what if verses what actually is.

Mark my words this year the DPOY will be one of three guys. Watt because the gig is up and they feel guilty after last year and if he has a similar year this year like last year it would look rediculous to deny him o the award again or they will continue with their agenda and it will be one of their new darlings - Parsons or Crosby. Just like on the offensive side of the ball it will be CJ Stroud if he comes remotely close to being one of the top five QB’s this year.

In addition to put weight on what the NFL executives say is joke in my mind. After watching the Giants NFL Hard Knocks I really lost alot of respect for these guys. I know they are only showing a snippet of things but these guys aren’t the sharpest tools out there at least the ones on the Giants aren’t and in addition there is a ton of bias on their side as well. You can draw your own conclusions.

 

PFF are a complete farce

 

They also hate Watt since 2018....I remember this article during the 2018 season....


Steelers’ T.J. Watt, Bud Dupree aren’t having the career years you think they’re having (pff.com)

 

Its so obvious. You know what else is telling. Garretts edge rush mates produced better on other teams compared to when they played for Cleveland, while Dupree is a shell of himself without Watt lining up opposite of him.

 

Ross Cockrell was a secret super star according to PFF before 2017

The secret superstars on every NFL roster (pff.com)

 

Even if you break down it down in simplistic terms.

Watt had 19 sacks and 50 pressures and 75 pass rush wins. +144
Garrett had 14 sacks, 37 pressures and 82 pass rush wins. +133

Watt still beats him by 11 plays. But ohhhh the double teams. The pass rush win rate and double teams are completely left up to interpretation and judgement and they never tell you how they derived at those metrics. I guess game winning TDs etc. have no weight in this argument. PFF is joke. i hope more people come to this realization and make them irrelevant which is what they are. I can remember when they graded Montravius Adams really high in the SF game last year. The game we gave up like 200 yards rushing and got destroyed.

 

And it don't count the time that Watt was in coverage....Burrow said that few week ago on Watt...

Joe Burrow on T.J. Watt: There's no other defensive lineman that I have to treat like a DB - NBC Sports

Watt has 2 interceptions vs Burrow in his career!

Sean McVay also change his whole gameplan vs steelers because of Watt,still make a huge play in coverage!

'He Is A Freak': Sean McVay Says Rams Altered Whole Game Plan To Affect T.J. Watt In 2023 Matchup - Steelers Depot

 

I would value what those guys say alot more than what Parsons says. I think they are a little more thoughtful in their response. Parsons just agrees with PFF because he knows he is one of their darlings and he is next in line to get his.

 

The other thing is a guy who has won the DPOY award a bunch who just retired and has no obvious bias because he isn’t jockeying for the award any longer and has achieved it enough to honestly eliminate any internal bias and allow for true transparency is Aaron Donald. He has said that Watt is the best Defensive Player in the NFL on more than one occasion.

 

TJ in a landslide!

 

The way TJ is continuously dismissed and overlooked in spite of persistent excellence on the field is really bizarre, as is the PFF driven media love-in for Garrett year after year.

PFF is honestly a whole pile of smoke and mirrors. The grading is done by unqualified yellow-pack employees who work to a manual. They mostly have no background in football or coaching. Even if they had some credible training they are not in the dressing rooms or on the sidelines and can’t know what any single players assignment is on a given play, yet they can give them a definitive performance grade. I don’t think so. The whole thing is a case study in marketing over substance. You might be able to make a case for their system on line play where the assignments are generally clear, but quite honestly their grading of skill positions is just about irrelevant.

Nothing matters more in football than beating your man and making the play. The way PFF have conned so many people in to believing otherwise is exceptionally impressive. I do think most of the mainstream media are entertainers rather than football experts and it suits them to have the likes of PFF do the thinking and analysing for them. They don’t understand the highly nuanced and hopelessly flawed system they use and probably don’t think too much about it or even want to understand it.

I highly doubt any credible coach in the league even looks at PFF grades.

The media have decided that Garrett is the best defensive player in football, seemingly regardless of on-field performance. He was invisible for a lot of last season but they continued to swoon over him and voted him DPOY when either Crosby or Watt were easily better across the season. I’ll never forget the graphic they put up when he was getting the award and he was barely top 5 in most defensive categories. It’s absolutely laughable that he got that award, and it had more than a whiff of a ‘it’s his turn’ honour. He is a very good player, a top 5 edge rusher along with Watt, Crosby, Bosa etc. but he isn’t this all time great that they want him to be IMO.

 

IMO I know the reason he beat Watt last season but I'll keep it to myself.

 

It definitely shows you the power of media, social media and propaganda. It’s Parsons turn this year.

 

Well in the honor of wokeness there is definitely that.

 

I see that so far with 40 players yet to rank that the Steelers have 3 players listed so far. Patrick Queen at #65, Minkah at #79 and Cam is ranked #98.

 

Wouldn’t surprise me if Garrett wins it again, he can do no wrong for many. A lot of it is down to his personality, doing fake basketball dribbles before the snap and all the goofy stuff he does off the field seems to make the media drool, so his all too frequent disappearances during key periods of games and even for stretches of the season are overlooked.

Parsons is a complete fool and his media work isn’t doing him any favours to put it mildly, he doesn’t have any of Garretts appeal so I don’t think he will be bigged up the same way tbh. Fantastic player though

 

Yes but it’s the fools that draw the media attention these days. I don’t get it. Garrett is good but I have never seen a player hyped the way he is. It ruins the game for me now when I watch us play Cleveland because I find myself watching him the whole time to find out what the mystery is about.

He loves to put the dog chain on after he makes a play which I get the celebration but then he prances up and down the sidelines with it looking for attention. I just don’t get it. The other guy that gets overhyped and I have still seen him rated higher than Watt by a couple pundits is Bosa. He us good but last year he certainly didnt play worthy of being above Watt.

A guy that I believe is honestly number two behind Watt is Crosby. The same type of relentlessness play after play and he doesn’t have the defense around him to support him like Garrett does or honestly Watt at this point if our Defense meets expectations.

 

Good point. There always so quick to prop up guys without them winning anything.

 

You're right Maxx Crosby is better than Garrett. Like you said Crosby is relentless on every play while Garrett disappears not only for a game or two but he was invisible the last half of season last year.

 

Yes give me Crosby over Garrett. Crosby never gives up but doesn’t do the glitz and glam nonsense that makes Garrett so popular

It’s not just Garrett either, the media has a bizarre fascination with the Browns, repeatedly tipping them to be contenders in spite of the fact that they haven’t done anything ever to suggest they are capable of making a postseason run. I just don’t understand the hype or what they are seeing.

I see it with the Colts to a lesser extent as well. It’s a very flawed roster but a lot of people are tipping them to be a dark horse / surprise team.

 

Please let it rest. Watt is superior over the clowns pass rusher. I don't need some dumb @ss at PFF to tell me other wise.

 

I think the Browns have a legitimate roster. But I agree the media loves the Browns. Comeback player if the year, head coach if the year and DPOY. If they’re so stacked why isn’t the coaching getting them further in the playoffs? I disagree with those awards all three of them.

 

Myles is miles ahead of Watt
CC: Case Closed

 

Their defence is overrated, and is largely a media creation. They faced a lot of backup level QB’s in 2023 and were very ordinary on the road. If you look back over their results, any good QB they faced put 30 on them. These performances were largely ignored. They’re good, but not the all-time unit that was being pushed all last season. Their offence is below average. I don’t see them as serious contenders at all.