JJ Watt’s 2015 season was brutal. He suffered injury after injury, including torn abdominal muscles and a herniated disc, and he landed on injured reserve again in 2016 when the same disc became herniated again and it required another surgery to repair. All of these injuries forced him away from football and made him reconsider his future in the NFL, but Watt wrote on “The Players’ Tribune” that, “Hell no,” he’s not done with football.
J.J. Watt says ‘Hell no’ he’s not retiring
Three major surgeries in one year forced Watt to consider retirement, but he’s not done.
Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images
Jeanna Kelley has been covering the Falcons for The Falcoholic since 2011 and the NFL for SB Nation since 2015.
The laundry list of injuries Watt has dealt with over the past two seasons is staggering. In addition to the twice-herniated disc and the torn abdominal and adductor muscles that required surgery, Watt had a broken hand and a staph infection that was so serious that he could have lost his leg if Houston Texans’ medical personnel hadn’t acted swiftly.
The injuries and associated recovery were enough to make Watt question his future in a sport that was taking such a toll on him physically.
I didn’t feel like myself. I had never even had one major surgery before, much less three in one year. To have the game taken away from me three times — each time left to wonder if I would ever be the same again — that was hard. That was the first time the word retirement had ever crept into my head.
Watt went home to Wisconsin to recover, and while there, he rekindled his passion for the game by remembering what made him love football in the first place. Standing under the Friday night lights at his high school convinced Watt that he isn’t finished with the NFL.
In that moment, I had a realization. I was actually overwhelmed by it. Football has been everything to me since I was 10 years old. For the past few months, all of that has been taken away. It’s been like a mini-retirement. And I realized that the money, the fame, the awards, the people talking about me on TV, none of that matters. None of those things have any effect on why I love this game and why I give everything I have to it.
After Watt landed on injured reserve in 2016 with the re-herniated disc, many questioned whether he would physically be able to continue playing in the NFL, or if he would have the desire to keep playing. Even Watt wasn’t certain, but his passion for the game is back, and he will be, also.
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