The American Gladiator

The American sports fan has officially fallen in love. Not with one of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, though. No, the one that they’ve fallen in love with is a football player, which is not necessarily surprising, considering how sports fans love their football players. But this affair is not with that everyday, garden variety football player you’d expect. In other words, it is not with a quarterback, the glamor position player most fans lavish their love upon. And it is not with the sport’s latest pretty boy player with the matinee idol golden boy looks. No, it is with a big, powerful, grunting, spit spewing lineman.

Yes, a lineman has become the face of the NFL. The fans may have liked J.J. Watt before last night, but after the Thursday night game against the Colts, they are officially in love with the Houston Texan defensive end more so than almost any other player in sports.

They may have started taking notice of J.J. Watt when he had an excellent year on a very good playoff team in 2012 and became the National Football League’s defensive player of the year, but taking notice does not constitute love. They really started liking him when his team did NOT have a good year in 2013, losing their last twelve straight games, and yet, there he was, literally busting his ass to try to do SOMETHING to help get his team just ONE win before the season ended. This included playing in one game where the bridge of his nose was obviously broken and blood started spurting out everywhere. He did not ask to come out of the game. He kept playing. He kept giving it his all. The last few games of the season? He taped up the nose and kept playing. And the wound kept opening up and bleeding some more. This is on a team that was so far out of the playoffs, the local golf course could not book the tee times fast enough to accommodate all of the players who had tuned out the rest of the season.

They never did win a game that season, but J.J. Watt won a lot of fans over. His spirited play, even during losing times, left an impression. He got rewarded with one of those lottery type contracts that pay him millions and millions of dollars a year, and the fans, instead of being bitter that still another spoiled athlete was making the big loot, instead thought to themselves, “This guy deserves it. He plays hard.” He got on a few national TV commercials. He was now pretty much known by everybody. But not necessarily loved yet. He needed the crowning achievement. Usually, that takes place in the playoffs, or in the Super Bowl. When you are watching the Houston Texans, you take what you can get.

That crowning moment took place in the Thursday Night game of the week, the Colts vs. the Texans. Watt was hyped up before the game started to be that really good player everyone should keep their eyes on. And all he did was make the kinds of plays that turn that fan base from people who like him to people who LOVE him. The team fell behind 24 to nothing. Another Thursday night blowout, right. Only his team, led by you know who, kept making the kinds of plays that show a team is NOT giving up.

Watt made solid defensive plays all night, usually plugging up his gap and making the Colts double team him nearly every play. That is what a defensive lineman is supposed to do. But he had two sacks of the quarterback. Most linemen who are double teamed do not do that. That is above and beyond the call of duty. Three times he batted down Andrew Luck’s attempted passes. Most defensive linemen don’t bat down three passes all year. Watt did it in one game.

When the team’s comeback seemed to stall and a Colt touchdown apparently put the game out of reach, what did Watt do? A few plays later, a Texan forced a Colt fumble, and who was right there to fall on it? Well, that’s the thing. Watt didn’t fall on it, he picked it up and ran it in for a defensive touchdown. Now his team is right back in what is turning out to be a very exciting game. Then, when his team HAD to stop a potent Colt offense from getting the first down that would ice the game, Watt, on third down and four, made the last of his great plays. He batted down that pass attempt that would have been completed and gotten the Colts the game clinching first down, giving his team one last chance to win a game they once trailed 24 to nothing. They didn’t score and lost the game 33 to 28, but the plays of J.J. Watt were the types of plays that people will be talking about to their grand children. He entertained the masses in a way that made HIM very special to THEM.

You see, J.J. Watt has become the modern day equivalent of everybody’s favorite gladiator from ancient Rome. The fans all knew who they liked in Roman times just like the fans of today know who they like. And HE is it. (In your mind’s eye, you could almost see him going toe to toe with a lion in the middle of the arena at the Colosseum in front of 50,000 screaming Roman fans and defeating that powerful beast with his bare hands.) The great ones play with the heart of a champion. They possess the qualities of heroic figures. And that’s the quality that they have that makes them not only measure up to everyone’s lofty expectations, they exceed them. J.J. Watt has officially become THE American Gladiator. “All hail J.J. Watt!!”