If you thought TJ Watt would go easy on you if you’re just a rookie learning the ropes, you’re mistaken. Darnell Washington found this out the hard way when former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin lined him up against Watt in a 2023 training camp and handed Washington his ‘welcome to the NFL’ moment.
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Washington prides himself on being a blocking tight end – an additional offensive lineman that creates additional lanes for the run game. But when he sat down to talk with Cam Heyward on the Not Just Football podcast after his new contract extension, Washington looked back on that training camp and admitted that he couldn’t stop TJ Watt.
“Coming into the league, everybody, you know, blocking tight end,” Washington said. ‘So that’s kind of what I harp on being a blocking tight end. So with me not [being] able to block somebody, that’s when I get in my head. That’s when you kind of kill my confidence a little bit. One was TJ, training camp, my first year. And it was a run game portion. It was with grab grass.
“I go against TJ, he beats me in 0.05 seconds. It was quick,” Washington continued. “So Mike T’s like ‘No, run it back. Run it back.’ So, we lined up again. He beat me in 0.05 seconds again. So I was just like, ‘Bro, what?’ I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’m just afraid of him, like ‘Coach me.’ Like, what am I doing? So, just going against TJ, I think we ran it back again, and he just beat me again. So, Mike T’s like, ‘Next person’ at that point.”
"Coach me!" 😂 Darnell Washington's welcome to the NFL moment was doing blocking reps vs future HOFer TJ Watt
“Grab grass” is a coaching term for a pass-rush move. It’s when a defender plants his foot hard into the turf on his first step – low leverage, quick explosion – then uses a dip-and-rip motion to shake off the blocker and aim for the quarterback. Washington’s job was to hold that ground, and Watt’s job was to blow through it.
Now, Darnell Washington has told this story before – on The Arthur Moats Experience back in 2024, he spoke of the same drill, the same result, and the same count. Mike Tomlin kept sending him back out, and Washington got beaten thrice in succession, and the reason was obvious.
TJ Watt isn’t fast; he’s almost complete. Go through his Madden 26 ratings right now, and you will see that his acceleration is at 87, finesse moves at 93, block shedding at 91, and pursuit at 96. He’s got 115 career sacks and 36 forced fumbles across 135 starts. Washington’s memory of Watt defeated him in 0.05 seasons, which is simply what Watt does. But Washington was no slouch either.
Imago
Oct 16, 2025; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Darnell Washington (80) celebrates with guard Mason McCormick (66) and center Zach Frazier (54) after scoring a touchdown against the Cincinnati Bengals during the fourth quarter at Paycor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Katie Stratman-Imagn Images
Washington boasted an athleticism score of 88 and a total score of 85 in the 2023 NFL Combine (second-best among all TEs in that class). A 4.64-second 40-yard dash meant the Steelers knew exactly what they were buying in the third round that year. But at camp, he was going up against a team captain who’d earned five straight Pro Bowls at that point (that total has tallied up to 8 after the 2025 season). It’s not even fair to think that Washington ever stood a chance.
But things changed eventually. By the 2025 training camp Friday Night Lights session, Washington wasn’t the rookie frozen in grab grass anymore. He won the rep against Watt twice. By the end of that practice, he’d beaten Watt, Jack Sawyer, Alex Highsmith, and DeMarvin Leal.
The man who stood there asking, “What am I doing?” in 2023 was walking out of backs-on-backers undefeated in 2025. That welcome to the NFL moment will remain forever, but Washington’s long past the point of asking TJ Watt to coach him.