Monday night’s Steelers win will be remembered as the final home game of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s career, but it was also a big moment in T.J. Watt’s run with the team.
Watt continued his dominant 2021 season in the 26-14 win over the Browns. Watt sacked Baker Mayfield four times over the course of the evening and is now up to a league-best 21.5 sacks for the year. That leaves him one behind Michael Strahan for the NFL’s official single-season sack record and 1.5 sacks behind Al Baker’s unofficial record for a season.
Watt also had five tackles, three tackles for loss, and two passes defensed in the win.
The NFL recognized Watt as the AFC’s defensive player of the week on Wednesday. It’s the third time he’s taken the honors this season and it seems likely that he will be adding defensive player of the year to his trophy case in the near future.