JJ Watt is a known force in the NFL world. In his first four years in the league, he’s won the Defensive Player of the Year award twice, made scores of offensive linemen look like fools, and established himself as the best defensive linemen in a generation.
He is, likewise, a bit of a goof-off. Though, given that he measures in at 6′ 5″ and 300 pounds, it might be fairer to call Watt an imposing goof-off.
Those two aspects of his personality came together beautifully during a recent (and almost certainly orchestrated) appearance at a Zac Brown Band concert in Milwaukee. Watt, who was watching the show from the right side of the stage, decided to intervene when a stage rusher scrambled up to center stage and began an absurd dance. “Intervene,” in this case, means a fierce piledriver of a tackle.
JJ Watt himself later tweeted out footage of the tackle:
Nobody messes with @zacbrownbandpic.twitter.com/bS3Rat13xP
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) June 29, 2015
It’s since emerged that the man Watt brought to the ground like a mother bear protecting its cubs is Jake Bartol, who also goes by Floady Boatwood, and is the monitor engineer for the Zac Brown Band. Bartol / Boatwood has appeared in videos for the band’s songs “Knee Deep” and “Toes.”
So it’s perhaps not a completely clean tackle, in that sense. Still: it’s enough to remind us that the NFL season kicks off only seventy-seven days from now.
(Photo credits: JJ Watt via Twitter)
