HOUSTON — Sunday could be J.J. Watt’s last game with the Houston Texans – something the star defensive end acknowledged Thursday during a news conference.
Watt’s six-year, $100 million contract, which he signed in 2014, expires after the 2021 season. He’s due a non-guaranteed $17.5 million base salary, meaning Houston could cut him without paying him anything.
“There’s a whole lot of unknowns in that situation,” Watt said, referring to his contract and the 4-12 Texans being without a permanent head coach for the time being. “We’ll see what happens. I don’t have guarantees left in my contract, so something’s got to happen one way or another, but we’ll see what happens.”
Last week, Watt, a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, gave an honest rant about the state of the Texans during the team’s postgame press conference after their loss to Cincinnati.
“We're professional athletes getting paid a whole lot of money. If you can't come in and put work in in the building, go out to the practice field and work hard and do your lifts and do what you're supposed to do, you should not be here,” he said. “We're in Week 16 and we're 4-11 and there's fans that watched this game, that show up to the stadium, that put in time and energy and effort and care about this. So if you can't go out there and you can't work out, you can't show up on time, you can't practice, you can't want to go out there and win, you shouldn't be here, because this is a privilege.”
Watt went on to say he feels bad for Texans fans, saying they have no reason to root for the team, but “they still want to win and they still want you to be great.”
The Texans are set to face the Tennessee Titans in their final game of the season at 3:25 p.m. Sunday on KHOU 11.
