J.J. Watt drops a stunning revelation that reignites anger among Packers fans over a painful past decision
Future Hall of Famer J.J. Watt badly wanted to play for the Packers back in 2021.
The Green Bay Packers made a monster move to acquire Micah Parsons back in August, and that alleviated a lot of the criticism over the front office for the lack of aggression. But in the past, things were actually pretty quiet around Green Bay — and this revelation won’t make things calmer.
Future Hall of Famer J.J. Watt was on the Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday, and he revealed some intriguing details about his free agency process back in 2021.
J.J. Watt badly wanted to play for the Packers
Four years ago, J.J. Watt requested his release from the Houston Texans to play somewhere else. His main plan was to play for the Packers — born in Pewaukee, 130 miles away from Green Bay, Watt grew up a Packers fan and played college football at Wisconsin.
“I wanted to play for the Packers in free agency,” Watt revealed. “I wanted to go to Green Bay. They were not interested. I told my agent, I don’t care what the number is, I don’t care how low it is, tell me what it is so I can at least consider it. I said, I’m not saying there’s a guarantee to take it, but I said, if it’s $2 million, if it’s $4 million, whatever the number is, put it in front of me so that I can at least consider it against all these options. And they said, ‘We can’t get a number.’”
Watt didn’t receive any interest from the Packers, even though there was a lot of speculation around that signing at the time. The connection was obvious.
“We went through the list of everything,” Watt recalled. “Where would you like to go? What are you looking for? And I said the ideal situation for me would be to go play for the Green Bay Packers. That’s where I grew up. I watched Reggie White. That would be incredible. I said I’d take a significant hometown discount to play there, but I just needed to know what that looked like so I could at least consider it against all options. I was not given a number to consider.”
Outcome
At that time, the Packers had Za’Darius Smith (who played only one game in that 2021 season due to a back injury), Preston Smith, and Rashan Gary as their main edge rushers. The backup options were Jonathan Garvin and Tipa Galeai, and later in the season the Packers signed Whitney Mercilus. The defensive ends of the 3-4 defense were Dean Lowry, Tyler Lancaster, and Kingsley Keke. It’s clear how Watt would have been able to help that unit.
“Right now,” Watt said, “I can tell you that $5 million dollars would have gotten it done.”
Ultimately, J.J. Watt signed a two-year, $28 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals. In 2021, he played only seven games due to a shoulder injury and had one sack, but Watt returned to a final season where he achieved 12.5 sacks in 16 games in 2022.
It’s another great what if story for Packers fans to consider.
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