It’s not every day that you see a star football player host a live sketch comedy show. So on February 1st, don’t be surprised when you see J.J. Watt hosting Saturday Night Live. The defensive end for the Houston Texans is ditching his day job and attempting to make people laugh for a night. Considering his job is to make people cry with pain on the football field, it’ll be interesting to see how he does on stage.
Watt isn’t the first NFL player to host the legendary late-night show. His name will be added to the list that already has Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, Deion Sanders, and a few others.
Watt missed half of the regular season this year due to a torn pectoral muscle in week 8. He made a valiant return just in time for the Texans playoff run including a momentum-changing sack in the second half that led to an overtime win against the Buffalo Bills. Unfortunately, the run ended there as Watt was on the wrong side of a massive comeback victory by the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Matchup.
Being that this episode will be aired right before the Super Bowl, we can be sure that there will be at least one shot taken at Watt for that epic collapse on the part of his defense. Shows like SNL tend to make light of those moments. It’ll be fun to see if Watt, who is an extremely intense competitor, will be able to turn that pain into humor.