Returning to football shape two months after tearing a pectoral isn’t easy. Returning to football shape as a defensive end, who is reliant on chest movement and strength, is harder. The Houston Texans’ J.J. Watt accomplished both.
In the wild-card round, Watt made his return after tearing his pectoral in Week 8 against the Oakland Raiders. Getting there wasn’t easy, especially considering that he had to break mental barriers to re-introduce a staple of his rushing plan: the bull rush.
“I’ve worked on it in practice the week before,” Watt said on the bull rush on Wednesday. “I’ve tried it, I’ve tested it out and it’s one of those things that the first time I did it in practice, I was obviously slightly hesitant with it, just because it was the first time I was doing it. I wanted to see how it felt. It held up, so then I tried it again in practice and then the second, third, fourth time I did it, I was like ‘OK, we’re fine.'”
Watt tallied a sack and two quarterback hits during the win. It took a while to unlock the bull rush, but once he got it, he was back. The move, that relies heavily on power from the chest, felt just as it used to be.
“Once you translate over to the game, it’s almost like the same process a little bit starting over,” Watt said. “So, the first time you do it, you throw it in there but you don’t fully throw it in there. It wasn’t my best one of all time, but you get more confident with and as you go, you kind of forget about it all.”
By the time the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year got to the fourth quarter, it was “football as usual.”
Said Watt: “I’m not going to lie to you, there was a slight bit of hesitation with it just because subconsciously your mind kind of takes it over. But as I go along and as I continue to get stronger, that’ll go away.”
Watt has another chance to use the bull rush and get back into football shape as the Texans face the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday at 2:05 p.m. CT in the AFC divisional at Arrowhead Stadium.
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