J.J. Watt Played Through Five Torn Core Muscles In 2015

J.J. Watt gets a ton of media attention because, well, let’s face it, the guy is essentially the public’s model of a perfect human being. The Houston Texans defensive end’s legend has grown enormously over the past few years and this latest story will only further that.

Watt underwent offseason surgery to repair the tears, which were on both sides of his body. It turns out he had partially torn left and right abdominal muscles and a partially torn right adductor longus. He also fully tore his left adductor longus and his left adductor pectineus, which are “two of the three muscles that connect the pelvic bone to the left thigh bone.” All of that sounds incredibly painful.

Watt also broke his hand on December 9 and played three games with a club-like cast on it, and had a herniated disk in his back in early November. Yeesh.

Here’s the most important part of the story: he never missed a game for any of those injuries and played well enough to earn his third NFL Defensive Player of the Year award in four years. He racked up 17.5 sacks, 76 total tackles, forced three fumbles, recovered one and batted down eight passes. In his five years in the league, Watt has never missed a game. So yeah, he’s a tough dude.

The 27-year-old finally gave in and left the field for good during the third quarter of the Texans’ 30-0 blowout loss to Kansas City in the wild-card playoff round.

Watt is currently rehabbing and should be ready for training camp.