Throughout the sports history, dynamic duos are always there. They’re often known on a one-name basis, too: Shaq and Kobe, Jordan and Pippen, Montana and Rice, Swann and Stallworth, Lemieux and Jagr, Gretzky and Messier.
The list goes on and on.
Fortunately for the Pittsburgh Steelers, they have a dynamic duo that is known by one name currently. That would be Watt and Highsmith at outside linebacker. T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, to be clear.
That duo is the best in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus’ Zoltan Buday.
In a piece highlighting the best duos in the NFL at each position, Watt and Highsmith were the runaway winners at the EDGE defender position for PFF.
“The Steelers feature arguably the best defensive line in football, led by a top-tier edge defender pair,” Buday writes of Highsmith and Watt, according to PFF.com. “While Highsmith was hindered by injuries last season, he was still among the most effective pass rushers in the league when on the field. His 89.3 PFF pass-rushing grade ranked seventh among 109 edge defenders.
“On the other hand, Watt led the position with a 90.3 PFF run-defense grade and ranked sixth in PFF pass-rushing grade (90.1), one spot ahead of Highsmith.”
Together, Watt and Highsmith form a formidable duo.
Watt gets much of the praise and the attention from the media, and rightfully so. He’s arguably the best defensive player in the NFL over the last five years, and has been a game-wrecker time and time again, even with teams trying to scheme up ways to take him away.
Over the last two seasons, Watt is second in the NFL with 30.5 sacks, just 4.5 behind Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson, who led the NFL in sacks in 2024 with 17.5. Watt is second even after having a down year last year from his lofty standards, recording just 11.5 sacks in a season in which teams chipped and double-teamed him at a league-high rate.
Now, coming into the 2025 season, Watt needs a new contract from the Steelers, and added that he’s open to moving around more defensively this season after he was a stationary target on the right side of the offense last season, making it easier for offenses to scheme up ways to take him away.
It will help if Highsmith is healthy for much of the 2025 season opposite him. The veteran outside linebacker played in just 11 games last season and battled groin and ankle injuries, which caused him to miss a bunch of time. When he was on the field though, Highsmith was quite good.
He had 48 pressures, good for just over four pressures a game, and he had 6.0 sacks on the year, too. Pretty good numbers from a pass rush perspective in just 11 games.
Together, Watt and Highsmith can take over games. They are tough to deal with as both play with relentless motors and have deep pass rush arsenals to tap into to beat opposing linemen. The outside linebacker position is the key cog in the Steelers’ defense, and that’s why the Steelers go as those two go game after game.
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