T.J. Watt jumped a fourth-quarter pass from Cooper Rush, walked it back 35 yards for his first career touchdown, and added a second sack before the day was over. That was the actual headline from the Pittsburgh Steelers’ win over the Atlanta Falcons, not the quarterback story that ate the entire offseason.
Aaron Rodgers opened what he’s already confirmed will be his final season in Pittsburgh Sunday, in what was also Mike McCarthy’s debut as Steelers head coach, and every bit of coverage into this game ran through him — the farewell-tour framing, the McCarthy fit, all of it.
Nobody will remember any of that by Tuesday.
Watt delivered the actual swing play of McCarthy’s coaching debut, on a defense that’s quietly been the one constant this franchise could count on since before Rodgers had a locker in the building. The Steelers won 20-13, and the fourth quarter is the only part anybody needs.
Here’s how it happened: Rush, starting for a banged-up Falcons offense, looked toward Bijan Robinson out of the backfield. Watt read it before Robinson did, undercut the route, and had 35 yards of empty grass in front of him. Nobody laid a hand on him. Cooper Rush’s afternoon effectively ended right there, with Pittsburgh’s lead ballooning to 20-10.
Watt’s first career pick-six was worth the wait. This deep into his career, and he’d never picked off a pass before Sunday — fitting, maybe, that it came against a backup making his first start of the year. Rush was only in the lineup because Tua Tagovailoa strained an oblique at Thursday’s practice, with Atlanta naming Rush the starter Sunday morning.
Two sacks and a pick-six in the same game is rare on its own. Watt has now done it in two separate season openers, the first player in NFL history to manage that. Only Julius Peppers has ever done this: paired 100-plus career sacks with 10-plus career interceptions. Watt just joined him.
I watched the interception four or five times, and the detail that sticks isn’t the return. It’s how unbothered Rush looks right up until the ball is already gone.
The doubt around Watt was real heading into 2026. He was hurt for most of last season, quiet by his own standard, and plenty of people wondered out loud whether he’d lost the step that made him a perennial Defensive Player of the Year threat.
Patrick Queen wasn’t entertaining any of it after the game: “That’s him. Everybody knows that’s T.J. I’m just happy for him because I saw the talk about him online, and it’s crazy how a guy could be dominant for so long and then one year he gets hurt and deals with some adversity and everybody trying to turn a page on him and stuff. So, I’m just happy for him to be able to go out there and be his whole self,” Queen told reporters after the win.
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Nobody in Pittsburgh spent the summer worrying about the pass rush. Aaron Rodgers’ final season in Pittsburgh was the story everyone wanted to write, and on Sunday he got to watch the defense write a better one. Watt had help — Nick Herbig and the rest of that Steelers front spent the whole game getting after Rush. They just let one guy turn it into the highlight.
Rodgers got the farewell tour everyone wanted to talk about. Watt got the highlight reel, same as it’s been for years.
