Betting on a keeper allowing at least one goal over the course of a season seems pretty safe. But former NFL player turned CBS analyst JJ Watt may be having a few second thoughts on that these days.
James Trafford, the keeper for English Football League Championship side Burnley (a side Watt and his wife Kealia took a minority stake in in 2023), DMed Watt on Dec. 28 and asked him if he’d consider coming out of retirement to play for the NFL’s Bengals next season. Watt responded “You don’t allow a goal the rest of the season and it’s a deal.” And that’s becoming just a bit more probable now.
Since that bet, Trafford has posted four straight clean sheets. That included an away 0-0 draw at Sunderland Friday. And, in the wake of that, Watt put out a funny X post on his DM with Trafford:
Watt followed that by sharing highlights of Trafford saving two penalties during the Sunderland match:
Again, this probably isn’t happening to a point where Watt would need to live up to his bet. In the EFL Championship, each team plays 46 matches in the regular season, and Burnley (currently in third place with a 14-11-2 record) has only played 27 so far. And while “season” may or may not include the playoffs for promotion, if it does, that would make Trafford’s task even harder. But the Clarets have only allowed nine goals this season, by far the best in the Championship (Sheffield United is second with 17), so there is at least a bit of a risk here.
The 35-year-old Watt probably isn’t coming out of retirement in any significant way even if Trafford does pull off something unbelievable here. (And plenty of media personalities have failed to live up to much more serious bets.) Watt has settled in well as a full-time The NFL Today analyst at CBS, and has even dipped his toes into game analyst work, appearing on Netflix’s Christmas Day broadcast with Ian Eagle and Nate Burleson (with that booth being ranked 10th out of 25 by our readers).
But Watt has dropped some musings at times about maybe playing again. So that idea can’t be completely ruled out. And it would be extremely amusing if a bet with a keeper on the team he has a minority stake in (which has even led to some funny cross-sport promotional moments) winds up driving that.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.