PITTSBURGH (93.7 the Fan) Steelers fullback/special teams captain Derek Watt is pretty much stuck being the “other” Watt brother. It is understandable seeing as his older brother is a sure-fire Hall of Famer and his younger brother is well on his way.
Derek also unique because he is the only one of the three who doesn’t go by his initials. The oldest - Justin James Watt – is JJ. and the youngest - Thomas Jordan Watt – is, of course, TJ. Seeing as Derek’s middle name is John it would stand to reason that he would also go by his initials. After all, DJ Watt does sound pretty cool.
The problem with DJ? The popular sitcom Full House. One of the main characters, DJ Tanner, happened to be a girl.
“When I was young that was obviously a show that we watched, DJ Tanner” he smiled, “DW from Arthur (also female) was another one and I decided that I wasn’t an abbreviation guy. I was just Derek.”
As it turned out, plain old Derek ended up being the most prolific football-playing Watt brother at Pewaukee High School. That brings us to the other nugget – courtesy of another Wisconsinite, Joe Schobert - that we first brought up in the wake of the Chris Boswell concussion that left the Steelers without a kicker for the second half of the Cleveland game. Derek Watt might be able to kick in a pinch since he did it in high school.
It never came to that in Cleveland and Mike Tomlin declined to identify an emergency kicker should that situation arise again, but giving Watt a try would make sense. “I know Danny Smith is aware, I’m sure, because he knows those kinds of things, Watt said.
“I know Joe (Schobert) is well aware - he even brought it up to me - because he’s still a little salty about it I guess,” he laughed. “I scored more points in high school. We were both running backs but I was a kicker as well so I kind of beat him by waging the kicker battle there. He still kind of holds a grudge on that, I guess.”
So, how would Watt actually do if called upon in an emergency?
“I kicked in high school but it’s been pretty much since high school,” Watt shrugged knowing that it was 10 years ago. “One thing that would change a little bit of our operation is I’m left-footed so I would be a lefty kicker. We’d have to switch things around so that would go into play.”
“I’d have to practice at least a few times,” he continued. “Obviously, I know kicking in the NFL is not an easy job. I haven’t done it so I don’t know how it would go.”