Steelers’ T.J. Watt might be feeling betrayed by Mike Tomlin after hearing his opinion on who the best player in the NFL is
Mike Tomlin often referred to T.J. Watt as an alien when asked about his play and often called him one of, if not the best, players in the National Football League. But now that he’s out of Pittsburgh, Tomlin is singing a different tune.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin made waves during an appearance on the PFF podcast hosted by Jac Collinsworth when he was asked to name the best player in the NFL. Tomlin’s answer will not sit well with Steelers fans or the defenders he coached for over a decade in Pittsburgh. When posed the question, Tomlin called former Cleveland Browns and now Los Angeles Rams defensive end Myles Garrett the best damn player in football.
The comment stings for obvious reasons. Tomlin never coached Garrett. He coached against him plenty of times, but he drafted, developed, and coached TJ Watt for nearly a decade. Watt and Garrett have had one of the more long-standing rivalries in the history of the edge rusher position, and it hasn’t always been pretty.
The Watt-Garrett rivalry runs deep
Steelers fans don’t need a refresher on the tension between these two, but Tomlin’s comments bring it all back to the surface. Garrett pushed back on Watt leaving the NFL Honors ceremony early when he was, as Watt would say, robbed of the Defensive Player of the Year award back in 2023.
Garrett’s defenders, along with Browns and Rams fans, would point to the fact that over the last two to three seasons the gap between the two hasn’t been particularly close in Garrett’s favor. That argument has some merit based on the numbers. But the issue here isn’t about who has the better stat line. The issue is about who is saying it.
What does this mean for Tomlin’s relationships with former players?
So the immediate question becomes: what does Watt think when he sees this? What do Steelers defenders think when their former head coach goes on a national podcast and crowns a former divisional rival the best player in football?
Maybe the players understand the reality of the situation. Tomlin is in the media now. He has a job to do, and part of that job is being honest, being candid, and making some controversy. Drumming up noise is part of the gig, and maybe that’s all Tomlin was doing here. Maybe he was being brutally honest about how he evaluates talent across the league.
But the truth is, context matters. Tomlin didn’t just coach Watt. He built a defensive identity around him. He watched Watt rack up sacks, forced fumbles, and game-changing plays for years. To then turn around and publicly declare that a player he never coached, one who happens to be Watt’s fiercest rival, is the best player in football? That’s a tough pill to swallow.
T.J. Watt 2025 stats
Across 14 games
- 7 sacks
- 55 tackles
- 3 forced fumbles
The bottom line
Tomlin is entitled to his opinion, and he may even be right. Garrett’s combination of size, speed, and consistency over the past few seasons has been remarkable. But this comment will linger. It will get back to Watt, and it will get back to the Steelers’ locker room. Whether it motivates or frustrates is another question entirely, but former coaches publicly choosing a rival over the players they built their legacy with is never a clean look, even if it’s pure honesty.
