J.J. Watt hilariously claps back at Steelers fan who criticized his terrible towel technique

Now enjoying retirement, former star NFL edge rusher J.J. Watt has been doing what he can to enjoy retirement. That, obviously, includes supporting his younger brother, T.J. Watt, who is one of the league’s best players. It also means that Watt made his way to a Pittsburgh Steelers game.

Naturally, this led to Watt waving a terrible towel, and according to at least one fan, he did it wrong. That fan was Mike Nicastro, a Steelers podcaster, who complained that he looked more like he was at a concert than a Steelers game.

Watt wasn’t going to take that lying down, though, and he took to social media to clap back at Nicastro. That included a nice series of excuses.

Let me break down the situation for you Mike…

A) I was 245 tater tots & 7 Sarri’s Pretzels deep by this point.

B) this was about 7 min. into Renegade and I had not properly endurance trained my shoulder for that length of twirling

C) I kept hitting the ceiling with the towel https://t.co/pcdZldmVQR

— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) November 9, 2023

“Let me break down the situation for you Mike,” Watt began by listing the biggest problems he was dealing with. That included his diet that day, the fact he was tired, and even that he was too tall for the booth he was in at the time.

“A) I was 245 tater tots & 7 Sarri’s Pretzels deep by this point,” Watt wrote. “B) this was about 7 min. into Renegade and I had not properly endurance trained my shoulder for that length of twirling C) I kept hitting the ceiling with the towel.”

In all fairness to Nicastro, Watt does appear to be struggling at times throughout the video. It’s not as fluid as a better-practiced Steelers fan normally would with the towel. At the same time, it’s hard not to respect where Watt is coming from.

J.J. Watt should have plenty more opportunities to enjoy a Steelers game and celebrate his brother moving forward. Over time, he’ll get better with the towel.

J.J. Watt recalls time T.J. was nearly killed by pasta in Italy

J.J. Watt and his brother T.J. are close to one another. So, it only made sense that the two of them would take a trip together. That trip happened to be to Italy and that’s where a pasta dish nearly managed to kill one of the NFL’s best pass rushers.

“We were in Rome one time, my brothers and I did a little European vacation, just the three of us – we’re idiots… We went to lunch, he knows he has a severe tree nut allergy, I do also, none of us were aware of the fact that pesto is made purely of tree nuts. He ordered a massive pesto pasta dish and literally stopped breathing at the table,” Watt said.

“We had to get him to the Italian hospital. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life because they wouldn’t let me go back with him either. They took him back there when he literally wasn’t breathing and for 45 min to an hour, Derek and I had no idea whether he was going to make it… This was 2014-15ish.”

At that point, the language barrier became an issue for the Watts.

The doctors didn’t speak English, he didn’t speak Italian, so they did kind of an Epipen motion, he said yes, and they said, ‘Use it!’”