Allen Park — When you’re a future first-ballot Hall of Famer and a three-time NFL defensive player of the year like J.J. Watt, you expect the phone to ring. Even in retirement, as teams inquire about a comeback and, more often, as contemporaries come looking for advice.
“You know, a lot of guys reach out, a lot of guys want to ask questions,” said Watt, a five-time All-Pro defensive end for the Houston Texans who is set to begin his post-playing career this fall as a CBS studio analyst. “Some are extremely interested, and you can tell they’re going to utilize the information. But with others, you can tell it’s kind of just a call to say they called.”
The call he received from the Lions’ Aidan Hutchinson earlier this offseason wasn’t one of the latter, however. And the relationship that has grown since then — between one of the cornerstone pieces in Detroit’s latest football renaissance and one of the game’s all-time greats — is one that Lions fans should find encouraging.
“It’s pretty cool to have a resource like that,” Hutchinson said after the Lions’ final practice ahead of Thursday’s blockbuster NFL Kickoff opener in Kansas City. “But, I feel like we’re alike in so many ways, it’s just one of those relationships that comes easy, you know?”
He knows now, thanks in part to Brett Fischer, the Lions’ new director of player health and performance, who spent the last 15 years as a consultant with the Arizona Cardinals. That’s where Watt finished his career in 2021 and ’22, and not long after Fischer connected the two former Big Ten stars, that’s where this all started.
“The call came when I was driving in the car and I was like, ‘Oh, (expletive),’” Hutchinson recalled with a laugh. “So there I am, one knee on the wheel, writing stuff down.”
But Watt took note of that himself. Of how “engaged” Hutchinson was on the other end of the line, how much he “really wanted to learn,” and how soon after that the 22-year-old “kid” was bombarding him with video clips of the work he was doing in training camp.
“He asks me to look at it, analyze it and give him tips and things,” Watt said. “I’ve really enjoyed that.”
So has Hutchinson, the former No. 2 overall pick who seems primed for a breakout season as one of the linchpins in what should be a much-improved Lions defense.
“My goal was to pick his brain, and pick his brain is what I’ve done,” he said. “I was soaking that (expletive) up like a sponge.”
That’s something he learned to do as he became a legacy All-America at Michigan, breaking down game film weekly with his father, Chris, and filling notebooks with detailed scouting reports on opponents. And it’s something he credits for the relatively smooth transition he made to the NFL a year ago, when he finished runner-up to Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year.
Hutchinson became the first rookie in league history to rack up as many as 9½ sacks, three interceptions and two fumble recoveries combined in a season. And when you consider he played all 17 games and logged more snaps (958) than all but one NFL defensive lineman (the Raiders’ Maxx Crosby), it was an unequivocally impressive debut.
“Obviously, he had a great rookie campaign,” Watt said. “But I think he does have an opportunity to make a huge jump in his second year.”
Speaking from experience
Watt knows of what he speaks, of course. He had a solid rookie season of his own for the Houston Texans back in 2011, with 49 solo tackles, 5½ sacks and two fumble recoveries. But then Watt came back the next season and put together one of the best seasons in NFL history, as the Texans went 12-4 and won the AFC South. Watt led the league with 20½ sacks among 39 tackles for loss that year, and he added 16 pass breakups, four forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries. He was a near-unanimous choice as NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
Can Hutchinson make a similar leap? Well, that was one of the first questions the understudy asked this summer.
“But to be honest, what he said to me is, it’s just a confidence thing,” Hutchinson said. “You know, because the talent’s there and I feel like my confidence right now is through the roof. I feel like I’ve got the green light from the coaches to just go and be me. And I feel like that’s what he felt back then. So, I think that’s the biggest thing going into Year 2.
“I mean, no one improves so insanely much in one year like JJ did. But I think it’s just a mindset and a confidence thing. It’s just committing to your craft and knowing how good you are.”
As for how good he can be, time will tell. But know this: Hutchinson feels insanely good right now, thanks to an offseason transformation that saw him replace nearly 15 pounds of fat with muscle on what is now a more durable — though still extremely pliable — 6-foot-7, 269-pound frame.
“I lost so much strength over the course of last season, so my mentality was to come in and be a little bit more dense, and that’s what I did and I feel frickin’ great,” he said. “It’s been a game-changer already, but I think throughout the year, it’s gonna be huge.”
And that’s a big deal, considering he’d already emerged last season as a “game-changer type of player,” according to Patrick Mahomes, the reigning NFL MVP he’ll be trying to chase down Thursday night in the opener.
“You could see at the beginning of the year, he played hard but he was trying to figure everything out,” said Mahomes, who’ll be protected by a retooled offensive line that should be one of the league’s best in 2023. “But as the season went on, he really started to come into his own.”
Indeed, while Hutchinson made a big splash early with a three-sack performance against Washington in Week 2 last September, it wasn’t until later that he really began wreaking havoc as the Lions made their second-half playoff charge. Midway through the season, he convinced the Lions’ coaches to let him operate out of a two-point stance, and over the last two months of the season — “We’ll call it the two-point stance era and on,” he jokes now — he was one of the highest-graded pass rushers in the league, per Pro Football Focus.
That’s in spite of the fact that, according to ESPN, no edge rusher faced more double-teams than Hutchinson did a year ago, when he saw it on nearly 30 percent of his snaps. Chiefs coach Andy Reid this week praised Hutchinson’s versatility, as he routinely flips ends at the line and is more than comfortable moving inside when asked. The way Hutchinson sees it, he can play as many as six positions for the Lions’ defense.
As for Watt, who still could torment tackles and guards as an inside rusher at the end of his career, he sees plenty of room before Hutchinson reaches his potential.
“Some of the things that he does and the way he works on his craft, it’s really impressive,” Watt said. “I mean, he wants to talk about things like specific hand placement, little things that he can do to finish at the top of the rush. He wants to talk about how to set up his moves, and over the course of a game, ‘How can I set up offensive linemen for a specific move?’ He wants to know what moves are missing from his repertoire. All these things are the right types of questions for him to be asking. And I’ve really enjoyed those conversations.”
They’ll continue, too, according to Hutchinson, who already had a pretty clear vision of who he was — and what he wants to be — but admits this offseason has “changed my perspective a little bit about how I see the game.”
Now, though, it’s time to see what that really looks like under the bright lights, Watt says, “And I’m really looking forward to watching it.”
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
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