Tying the NFL’s single-season sack record earned Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
His brother, J.J. Watt — a two-time defensive player of the year himself — presented him with the award, which was the first one announced at Thursday’s NFL Honors awards show in Los Angeles.
The younger Watt tied Michael Strahan’s 2002 single-season sack record of 22.5 sacks despite missing two full games because of injury. He won the award at the end of season that began with the Steelers making him the NFL’s highest-paid defensive player. At one point this season, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said Watt should not only be defensive player of the but also should receive MVP consideration.
Before the show began, Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn was named assistant coach of the year. Quinn turned around a Dallas defense that allowed a franchise-record 473 points in 2020 into one that finished ninth in points per game and led the league in takeaways.
Quinn altered his defensive philosophy from the single-high scheme he learned in Seattle and brought with him to the Atlanta Falcons, where he had a five-year run as head coach, to a much more varied scheme with fronts and coverages. After the season ended, he interviewed for a number of head coaching vacancies but opted to pull his name from consideration to remain with the Cowboys on a multi-year extension.
