Mark Madden: T.J. Watt's injuries — and $80M contract — are real concerns

In October, the headline on my column trumpeted, “T.J. Watt worth every red cent.”

That’s still true — when he plays.

But Watt is hurt a lot.

Watt played sporadically in Sunday’s 36-10 loss at Kansas City. He reportedly has cracked ribs. Watt had one tackle and zero sacks. He was a nonfactor.

Watt has missed two games, left three early and had his play compromised by injury in two more. That leaves just eight games this year where Watt has been 100% or close.

That’s not Watt’s fault. Football players get hurt.

But Watt gets hurt often enough that the Steelers might be second-guessing the four-year, $112 million contract extension they gave him just before the season. If not, they should be.

Watt is 27. His body is breaking down at the same age his brother J.J.’s did.

Over the last six seasons (including the current one), J.J. has played just 55 of his team’s 95 games. That’s 58%.

We don’t know that T.J.’s problems will mirror J.J.’s. But they might.

It seems likely the Steelers are headed for a few poor seasons. Elite edge rushers make good teams into contenders. But they don’t make bad teams good.

T.J. healthy and at his peak would be little help when the Steelers trail 30-0 like they did at Kansas City. (Then again, no one player changes that horrible scenario. What a debacle.)

The Steelers should have let T.J.’s contract expire after this season, then franchised him once or twice. That would have cost them $17 million next season. Instead, they gave T.J. an extension worth $80 million guaranteed with an average annual value of $28 million.

Franchising T.J. would have allowed the Steelers to pay him less and take less long-term risk.

But T.J. would have been upset. Maybe he would have continued training camp’s passive holdout indefinitely. (But probably not.)

The Steelers used to be a cutthroat organization. (Franco who?) But now they’re in the happy business.

So, T.J. got what he wanted. (Or close. It was reported T.J. ignored his agent’s advice and took less money to get the deal done. Maybe T.J. knew he’d only be at full tilt for about half the games. Or maybe that story is horse manure.)

T.J. was invisible at Kansas City. He now seems unlikely to get the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award. His shot at the league’s single-season sack record is also fading. (He won’t get his first-ever playoff sack this season, either.)

The Steelers did little of much note Sunday.

But we got to see a cameo of Mason Rudolph when he deputized at quarterback for Ben Roethlisberger late in a game that long since had been a lost cause.

The hoi polloi may dream of the Steelers acquiring a veteran or drafting Pitt’s Kenny Pickett. But Rudolph will be the starting quarterback at the beginning of next season.

Rudolph showed little at Kansas City. He completed 5 of 8 passes for 34 yards. His yards-per-attempt average of 4.4 was almost identical to Roethlisberger’s, as was Rudolph’s passer rating of 72.4. (That’s not good.) Rudolph’s lone highlight was a 17-yard run off a scramble.

Doomsayers feel the Steelers will be cannon fodder with Rudolph at QB. But they haven’t been so great this season with Roethlisberger behind center.

Here’s predicting that after a full training camp of first-team reps and a few preseason games of first-team reps, Rudolph will perform at least as well as Roethlisberger did this season. He’s got a much stronger arm and a lot more mobility. He’s also 26. Rudolph won’t be bad.