JJ Watt Selfie Celebration Mocks Zach Mettenberger: "His Head Wasn't in the Game"

JJ Watt was a guest on the Dan Patrick Show this morning. The conversation began and ended with discussion about Watt’s sack celebration and subsequent reaction to Zach Mettenberger’s selfie yesterday. (And there was a whole lot of boring chit-chat in between — Watt and Russell Wilson must’ve learned media strategy from the same guy at Wisconsin.)

Watt claims that he did not see Mettenberger’s pregame selfie on his own. He would NEVER be on his phone right before a game. An anonymous locker room source showed him the photo, which provided the Texans defensive lineman with bulletin board material. You do not dare disrespect the game of football on Watt’s watch.

As Watt tells it, it wasn’t so much the mid-week selfies that were offensive, so much as the one 90 minutes before the game. “As a player you take the game seriously,” Watt said. “An hour and a half before the game, you’re studying your playbook, you’re stretching out, you’re going over your film and everything.”

“In my head, I’m thinking, ‘Okay, kid’s head’s not even in the game. It’s go time,” Watt continued.

Watt did note that he thought Mettenberger played a pretty good game, and thought he had a chance to become a good quarterback.

One of Watt’s quotes from yesterday — “It’s just kind of a reminder, this is the National Football League, not high school” — could be neatly juxtaposed with the time he and his teammates rocked varsity jackets before getting blown out by the Patriots in 2012. Unfortunately, Patrick never inquired about those circumstances, so we didn’t get the chance to hear Watt’s explanation for his own youthful indiscretions now that he’s a wise old man at 25.

Obviously Watt is a great player, and he does a lot of good for a lot of people, but his last 24 hours are what happens when a player buys too much into a narrative propagated by himself and the media. He also has the luxury of being a great player who doesn’t play quarterback. If he did, he’d have to face (dumb) questions about why his leadership hasn’t made his teammates perform better than 6-18 since the beginning of last season.