Watt A Guy

I’m a Green Bay Packers fan. There, I said it. My dad is a shareholder and I’ve been to a handful of games at Lambeau Field, despite the fact that I’ve lived south of the Rio Grande for most of my life. We bleed green and gold in our household. And when the Packers collapse on themselves and break our hearts, as they are wont to do, we cry green and gold tears. That said, I can appreciate when other teams’ players do things that don’t totally suck. And J.J. Watt, defensive end for the Houston Texans, is a guy who seems to do a lot of things that don’t suck.

With the Adrian Petersons and Ray Rices of the NFL world getting so much attention, it’s nice to see that there are guys at the other end of the spectrum as well; guys who prove that how successful you are doesn’t have to be directly proportional to how big an a-hole you are.

Enter J.J. Watt.

The Gentle Giant is known for being a pretty nice guy in real life. Now, don’t get me wrong. On the field he’s a terrifying beast, but as an actual human being he seems pretty solid (and I’m not just talking about his brick house of a body, which also appears to be fairly solid).

He proved this yet again when he sent pizzas to police and fire stations across Houston on Tuesday, with the following (hand-written) note:

And in case supersonic seeing isn't your particular superpower, here's what it said:

HFD & HPD,

"I just wanted to send y’all a small token of my appreciation for everything you do. My dad & uncle were both firefighters, so I spent a lot of time around the firehouse when I was younger and gained a great deal of respect for both firefighters & the police force along the way. Y’all show up day in & day out, never knowing what the day might hold and never getting enough thanks for what you do. Yet, you still continue to put others before yourselves and save lives because of it. As athletes, we often get the headlines and big crowds, but just like the men & women of our military, y’all are the ones who truly deserve the credit, appreciation & admiration. I know it’s not much, but please enjoy lunch on me today. Thank you for all that you do!”

This is the kind of guy you want to bring home to mama; if, of course, said guy wasn’t nearly 10 years younger, wasn’t better suited to your sister and didn’t make you look like a major cougar.

But other than that…

And mad props to this Wisconsin boy for spelling “y’all” correctly. A lot of native speakers – and by native, I mean native to the south – can’t even do that. 

He's a happy fella

It’s been mentioned by the more cynical folks in the audience that J.J. has an endorsement deal with Papa Johns – they who provided the pizzas – and that, therefore, this should all be taken with a relatively large grain of salt. But I can honestly say that I pretty much don’t care. So what if this was all a genius marketing ploy? It worked – and it made a whole lot of people feel really happy and really appreciated in the process. Every marketing tactic should be so altruistic.

In the end, I can’t say that this has exactly made me a Texans fan, especially now that Owen Daniels is gone, but I can say that moments like these certainly make it a little easier to root for the boys in blue and red.

Unless they’re playing the Packers.

In that case, it’s every (great) man for himself.