Watt joining Cardinals on 2-year deal
SEC champ Alabama finds its way out of Auburn’s shadow
TEMPE, Ariz. — J.J. Watt has agreed to a two-year contract with the Cardinals, showing that the franchise will be aggressive once again in their push to snap a five-year playoff drought.
The team announced the deal with the free-agent edge rusher on Monday. Watt was released last month by the Texans, for whom he won three defensive player of the year awards.
A person familiar with the contract told the AP that the total package is worth $31 million.
A five-time All-Pro, Watt — who turns 32 in three weeks — has been one of the NFL’s best players for a decade, but asked out from the Texans, who are undergoing a roster upheaval. Watt joins another former Texans star, wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, in Arizona. Hopkins was acquired by the Cardinals in a one-sided trade a year ago.
Watt had one year remaining on a six-year, $100 million contract with the Texans.
Watt’s signing is an indication that the Cardinals are willing to spend money in their effort to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2015. They finished with an 8-8 record in 2020, losing five of their last seven games to fall just short of the postseason.
Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph can now add Watt to a group that already has veteran edge rusher Chandler Jones, who had 19 sacks in 2019 before his 2020 season was cut short by a biceps injury. The Cardinals also have young playmakers such as linebacker Isaiah Simmons and Pro Bowl safety Budda Baker.
Hopkins foreshadowed Watt’s arrival in the desert a few weeks ago on Instagram, when he posted a picture of the two players, including Watt in a photoshopped Cardinals jersey with the message “Let’s finish what we started ...”
Watt’s arrival will certainly ratchet up the pressure on third-year Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury, who wasn’t quite able to push the team into the postseason in 2020. Kingsbury’s known for his offensive acumen — and was brought to mentor 2019 No. 1 overall pick quarterback Kyler Murray — but now the defense might be just as important to the Cardinals’ success.
Though he has been plagued by injuries in recent years, Watt started all 128 games in which he appeared in the last 10 years after entering the league as the Texans’ first-round selection, 11th overall, in the 2011 draft out of Wisconsin. In 2017, he was selected as the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year for his work in helping Houston recover from Hurricane Harvey. Watt, who long has been lauded for his humanitarian efforts, helped raise more than $40 million in hurricane relief in 2017.
He was the league’s top defensive player in 2012, 2014 and 2015. Then injuries began to slow him. He appeared in only three games in 2016 and five the next season, sidelined by back problems and then a broken leg. In 2019, Watt missed half of the schedule with a torn pectoral muscle.
He returned to play the entire 2020 season and was effective, though not dominant.
So the Cardinals likely are not getting a vintage Watt, the only player in NFL history with 20 or more sacks and 10 or more passes defended in a single season, doing it in both 2012 and 2014. He’s tied for fifth among defensive lineman in league history with six touchdowns in the regular season, including three TD catches.
He has 101 career sacks, and over the past decade leads the league in tackles for losses (172), quarterback hits (281), multisack games (26) and sack yards (713 1-2).
Alabama coach Nate Oats didn’t inherit nearly the same kind of rebuilding task as Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, but he has sure made quick work of it.
After a few years of being overshadowed by its rival from across the state, the eighth-ranked Crimson Tide is now enjoying a comparable level of success in Oats’ second season.
Alabama (19-6, 14-2 Southeastern Conference) has already secured its first league title since 2002 entering Tuesday night’s game with the Tigers (12-13, 6-10), who have struggled with a young team.
“I thought we could compete for championships,” said Oats, who has already received a raise and three-year contract extension. “I didn’t know that we’d actually win one in Year 2. That would be a little bit of a bold statement going in.
“It would have been a little bold even at the end of last year, to be honest with you, after we finished 8-10. Internally we talked about winning it. I certainly wasn’t going to talk about it externally.”
Alabama secured the title with Saturday’s 64-59 win over Mississippi State.
Oats has built on a 16-15 debut (8-10 in SEC games) season by adding players like transfers Jahvon Quinerly and Jordan Bruner, junior college guard Keon Ellis and freshman Joshua Primo to an inherited group that includes seniors John Petty, Herb Jones and Alex Reese.
Plus leading scorer Jaden Shackelford, a sophomore who had already been signed by Oats’ predecessor, Avery Johnson.
The Tide figures to be a high seed in only its second NCAA Tournament since 2012. And this time Auburn will be the spectator, amid a down season that rendered moot a self-imposed postseason ban stemming from a bribery scheme involving former assistant coach Chuck Person.
In 2014, Pearl took over a team that hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2003. The Tigers made it to their first Final Four in 2019 and were on their way to a third straight NCAA tourney before the last postseason was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Pearl said “there’s no comparison” between the talent level he and Oats inherited. But the Tide coach has filled out his roster with important pieces, and Pearl says he isn’t surprised by the quick turnaround in Tuscaloosa.
“I’ve said it before and I don’t mind saying it because I paid Nate great compliments, but he inherited a good roster, a very good roster,” Pearl said. “And he’s done a phenomenal job with that roster, and he’s added some incredible pieces.”
Players like those three seniors have flourished in his fast-paced system this season, especially. The defense in particular has improved. And so, Oats said, have those seniors.
“They’ve bought into playing this way,” Oats said. “They’re playing defense at a high level. Offensively, I think it fits their games pretty well.”
And that involves plenty of 3-pointers from a variety of players. No Division I team had attempted more than Alabama’s 755 3s entering this week, and only Toledo has made more than the Tide’s 268.
Petty’s 59 3s lead the league, while Quinerly and Primo are both among the SEC’s top 5 in percentage made. Petty is 11th.
Alabama also is second in the SEC in rebounds per game, leading Pearl to proclaim: “I mean, they just don’t have any weaknesses.”
And he’s familiar with the success one can attain with that offensive playing style.
“We went to the Final Four spreading it and shooting it,” Pearl said.
With the NFL draft less than two months away, Mel Kiper Jr. is back in mock draft mode.
The ESPN analyst on Thursday released his second projection, which again had the Ravens taking LSU wide receiver Terrace Marshall Jr. at No. 27 overall. Kiper was asked about the pick, the team’s other firstround options and more during a teleconference Monday with reporters. Here’s what stood out.
1. There’s impressive depth at wide receiver
Marshall had 48 catches for 731 yards and 10 touchdowns in seven Southeastern Conference games last season for LSU, meaning he was on pace for 1,250-plus yards over a typical 12-game schedule. The 6-foot3, 200-pound Marshall, who doesn’t turn 21 until June, was the fifth receiver taken in Kiper’s mock draft, behind Florida’s Kadarius Toney but ahead of other potential firstround picks like Purdue’s Rondale Moore and Minnesota’s Rashod Bateman.
The Ravens need a playmaking wide receiver opposite Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, and “I just thought a bigger receiver in Marshall would help out the situation there,” Kiper said Monday. “James Proche will be maybe looking to step in for Willie Snead. You’ve got [Devin] Duvernay. Height, length is what you’re lacking there, and I think Marshall would give you that ability. He was there with [Minnesota Vikings star] Justin Jefferson. He was there with [likely top-10 pick] Ja’Marr Chase. He was the third guy and still producing. So, to me, if he’s there at No. 27, that would be somebody to look at.”
If the Ravens target another position on Day 1, Kiper’s optimistic they can find wide receiver help in the second round, where they have the No. 58 overall pick, or later. Michigan’s Nico Collins, Wake Forest’s Sage Surratt, Oklahoma State’s Tylan Wallace and Moore all rank between Nos. 50 and 70 on ESPN’s overall prospect rankings.
“There’s going to be a lot of depth at wide receiver all the way around,” Kiper said. “I like the wide receiver position a lot. It’s the strongest position overall in this draft.”
2. Another Alabama star could be headed to Baltimore
In Kiper’s mock draft, he had the Pittsburgh Steelers taking Alabama center Landon Dickerson at No. 24 overall. But Kiper mentioned Baltimore as another possible destination for the 6-6, 325-pound Dickerson, who also has starting experience at guard.
The Ravens have taken five Crimson Tide players over the past seven drafts, including first-round picks Marlon Humphrey (2017) and C.J. Mosley (2014), and they lacked consistency at center and right guard last season.
“He has the attitude, approach — ‘Play like a Raven,’ he’s got that,” Kiper said. “They love Alabama players, so I would think if he doesn’t go to Pittsburgh at No. 24, maybe Landon Dickerson from Alabama would help that interior of the offensive line, which was a big problem last year.”
Dickerson had season-ending knee surgery late last season, the latest red flag in a checkered medical history. But his recovery has already produced one viral moment: a single-leg squat in which he showed the flexibility of a ballet dancer.
“Even though he’s going to be still working through the injury when the season begins, you put him on [the physically-unable-to-perform list], [he] comes back in the fourth, fifth week of the season, and you get a great player anchoring your line,” Kiper said.
3. The board could fall in the Ravens’ favor again
Last year, the Ravens didn’t need to move up to pick maybe the draft’s top inside linebacker prospect. LSU’s Patrick Queen fell to them at No. 28 overall, the third true inside linebacker off the board.
This year, the Ravens’ roster has more holes. But the front office could also have more high-value options late in the first round. The defense needs reinforcements at edge rusher, and Kiper said Penn State’s Jayson Oweh, Michigan’s Kwity Paye and Miami’s Jaelen Phillips could still be on the board at No. 27.
And if the Ravens acquire a first-round pick for right tackle Orlando Brown Jr. — Kiper said the team should ask for that and more in trade talks — they’ll have even more flexibility with their draft plan.
“They could be looking at center, a couple pass rushers and a wide receiver all there when they pick at 27,” Kiper said, “which would make it a pretty nice decision to have to make for Eric DeCosta.”