J.J. Watt will regrettably have to learn how to criticize NFL players for his new CBS job
For all intents and purposes, J.J. Watt was one of the greatest defensive players the NFL has ever seen.
Watt's peak — which featured three Defensive Player of the Year honors in four seasons from 2012 to 2015 — was football artistry. This essentially means that Watt has likely forgotten more about the game of football than any of us even know in the first place. It also means that the new CBS NFL color commentator alongside Ian Eagle is still pretty sympathetic to NFL players who seemingly make mistakes mid-game.
So much so that he doesn't actively enjoy dispensing criticism on live television.
You can see where this might be a problem for someone who will be calling some of the biggest NFL games starting this September.
During a recent interview on the Houston Texans' GOAT Talk podcast, Watt said he found it hard to lambast NFL players in the way we're accustomed to from other announcers as fans when he was still on the studio show with CBS. Honestly, Watt's rationale for why this is a challenge makes sense for a legendary player who's still transitioning to full-time broadcasting.
More from the Goat Talk podcast:
“I love still being around ball," Watt said. "I love being able to talk football. It would be very weird if I didn’t have some tie to the game, because I love watching it, talking about it, breaking it down."
“At the same time, I have a very difficult time criticizing guys because I was on the field. I know, you’ve got a guy who’s breaking down film and he’s drawing up the play and you’re like, ‘That’s not my assignment, that’s not my job,’ and you just threw all this blame on me on national TV. So I never want to be that guy, so I’m always very careful from that standpoint, but it has been really, really fun still being a part of the game.”
If we really think about it, Watt's explanation here from a former professional athlete now turning to TV likely happens more than we think.
Athletes at the highest levels of their sports treat their leagues like fraternities and sororities. It's about staying in the thick of it together because only your in-group really understands all of the on-field and on-court responsibilities. They don't view the game like observers from the outside looking in. They just don't. It's their livelihood, and they want to protect it. Together.
Say you're someone like Watt, who only retired after the 2022 season, and you're watching a NFL game live where someone went unblocked on a sack. For us, it's quite easy to blame a lineman or the quarterback for what looks like a glaring mistake. For Watt, there's more nuance to it, as you don't quite understand whose job is whose unless you were game-planning with that specific team. So, you're more hesitant to cast fault at someone's feet.
Still, that's ... kind of the nature of the job Watt just took. It's unavoidable. To be an entertaining and insightful NFL announcer, you must be able to dispense criticism without knowing the exact nature of everyone's job on the field. You can still strike a balance of being fair and logical without unnecessarily ripping someone to shreds, but you can't also hedge every time a sack or a drop or a missed route happens. It's unrealistic. At a certain point, it strains your credibility for the people watching at home, who are your main responsibility as a broadcaster.
To Watt's credit, making these sorts of public comments seems like more of a public acknowledgment of an announcer skill he's still learning rather than one he's outright refusing. Nonetheless, here's hoping Watt is a fast learner on the job this fall.