Professional football is the most popular sport in America, but in Houston, the sport is currently either (a) the bane of many Houstonians existence, or (b) a forgotten relic. Most Houstonians are either angry about or apathetic toward professional football, and that might be the most miraculous thing the Houston Texans gave accomplished — they’ve turned a football crazed city against the sport of professional football.
So let’s get back to a place where we feel good about football and all that surrounds it again — let’s talk about the recently retired Texan legend J.J. Watt!
I’d love to do a post on the top on field moments of Watt’s career, but the problem with that is the NFL makes it nearly impossible to embed streaming video footage of NFL highlights into blogs like this. So instead, we will relive some of Watt’s most interesting, impressive, and viral moments OFF the field. In my opinion, here are the best six of those moments:
J.J. Watt proposes to 6 year old girl, January 2013
The rise of J.J. Watt the Social Media Phenomenon began shortly after his first true monster season as a pro, when he was the Defensive Player of the Year in 2012. Among the many moments, the one most prominently remembered in the spring of 2013 was when a video of a 6 year old girl, lamenting the fact that she wasn’t old enough to marry Watt, surfaced. Watt saw the video, invited the girl’s family to NRG Stadium where he promptly proposed to her to be his pretend husband for a day. That young lady is a teenager now, and I wonder how tempted she was to break up Watt’s wedding ceremony with Kealia Ohai, based on a contractual technicality.
J.J. Watt executes a 61 inch fox jump, April 2015
Watt’s workouts through the years, especially his early seasons in the league, were legendary, and they were culminated by this 61 inch box jump, a damn superhuman feat for a human being his size. Ultimately, the hardcore nature of Watt’s workouts may have contributed to the wear and tear on his body as much as they helped curtail it, but damn this was cool.
J.J. Watt raises over $40 million for Hurricane Harvey relief, September 2017
Watt’s moments on the internet range from physically impressive to hilarious and everything else in between. Put this one in the category of “meaningful and memorable.” When this city was flooded under several feet of water, knocked to its collective knees, there was Watt raising over $40 million to help get us back on our feet.
J.J. Watt hosts Saturday Night Live, February 2020
At the top of the list of Watt appearances on regular television programming has to be his appearance as the celebrity host of Saturday night Live during the week of the Super Bowl in 2020. Watt did a very good job handling all that came with what has to be one of the more intimidating atmospheres in which to cross over from sport to acting. The best skit was the one seen above called “Robbie,” a parody of the motion picture Rudy.
J.J. Watt goes off in postgame press conference, December 2020
This one was form the tail end of the horrific 2020 season. It’s Watt saying what many Texans fans were thinking, as he laid out exactly what constitutes being a pro. It’d be interesting to know if he had any specific teammates in mind when he fired off this salvo.
J.J. Watt says goodbye to Houston, February 2021
I’m not crying, you’re crying!
Listen to Sean Pendergast on SportsRadio 610 from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekdays. Also, follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/SeanTPendergast and like him on Facebook at facebook.com/SeanTPendergast.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
