JJ Watt won’t be playing for the Bengals in 2025: Here’s why the NFL legend won’t be coming out of retirement

It’s official, JJ Watt won’t be coming out of retirement. For the past two months, there had been a chance that the three-time defensive player of the year was going to return to the NFL in 2025 over a bet he made, but that chance has now gone out the window. 

The bet involved Watt and James Trafford, a huge Cincinnati Bengals fan who happens to be the goalkeeper for Burnley FC. Watt and his wife, Kealia, own a stake in Burnley, a soccer team that plays in the English Football League’s (EFL) Championship division. 

Back in December, Trafford asked Watt if he’d be willing to come out of retirement to play for the Bengals and Watt half-jokingly responded that he would do it, but only if Trafford went the rest of the EFL season without surrendering a single goal. 

The tweet above is from January, but the two had the text message exchange on Dec. 28 and up to that point, Trafford had allowed just nine goals in 22 league starts, which is impressive. But to win the bet with Watt, the 22-year-old Trafford would have to finish the season by recording 24 shutouts (clean sheets) in a row.

Considering the all-time English record by any keeper is 14 shutouts in a row, this didn’t seem like anything Watt would have to worry about, but things suddenly got very real for the former Texans star after Trafford went 12 games in a row without giving up a goal. However, that streak finally came to an end on March 4 after Cardiff City’s Yousef Salech put a wild header past Trafford in the 42nd minute. 

The goal by Salech ended Trafford’s streak of 12 straight clean sheets, which will go down as the second longest streak by ANY keeper in English soccer history. 

After Salech scored, Watt reacted on social media. 

Watt also gave a shoutout to Bengals fans for jumping on the Burnley bandwagon. 

Before the streak ended, both sides were definitely having fun with it. As recently as last week, the Burnley social media team had made sure to remind Watt of how well Trafford was playing. 

Trafford was so good in January that he was named the EFL Championship player of the month. 

Trafford’s streak started on Dec. 26 and went more than two months before ending on Tuesday. 

If Trafford had gone the entire EFL season without giving up a goal, Watt would have definitely come out of retirement. Although Watt seems to love his job as a studio analyst on “The NFL Today” here at CBS Sports, he was dead serious about making an NFL return. 

During an interview on The Dan Patrick Show this week, Watt made it clear that he would have been happy to play for the Bengals if Trafford’s improbable run of consecutive clean sheets had continued.

“I’ll do it,” Watt said of returning to the NFL. “If he does that, which is insane, we have 12 or 13 games left. If he does it, it’s insane enough and respectful enough that I will absolutely follow through. Who knows if the [Bengals] even want me? I don’t even know. I haven’t talked to them, but I’m in shape, I’ll go play.”

The Bengals had one of the worst defenses in the NFL last season, so there’s a good chance they would have welcomed Watt with open arms. 

Burnley became a popular team in Cincinnati during the streak with Bengals fans hoping that Trafford could pull off the improbable feat. 

“We’ve created a lot of Clarets fans in Cincinnati, which is really cool,” Watt told Patrick. “We’re getting a lot bigger ratings and numbers from the Ohio region.”

During the interview, Watt admitted that he never expected things to get this far.   

“It started as a literal joke,” Watt said of the bet. “Obviously, I talk to the guys on our team all the time and James Trafford — he’ll be England’s No. 1 keeper some day, he’s that good — and he messaged me one day. We were talking about Steelers-Bengals … and he was messing with me and he said, ‘Hey, do you fancy coming out of retirement and playing for the Bengals?’ Being a smart ass, I said, ‘Yea, you don’t give up another goal the rest of the season, I’ll come out of retirement and play for the Bengals.'”

Things started to get a little more serious for Watt after Trafford recorded his third clean sheet in a row. 

“There were [24] games left at the time,” Watt said of when the bet was originally made.”I was like, ‘This is just a joke.’ Next game, he didn’t give up a goal and I messaged him and I said, ‘Hey, you’re really taking this serious.’ And he was like, ‘I really want you to play for the Bengals.’ Two games later, two more games with no goals, I message him back and I’m like, ‘This is getting a little ridiculous now.'”

Trafford’s most impressive match during the streak arguably came on Jan. 17 against Sunderland when he stopped TWO penalty kicks in a 0-0 draw. 

Stopping one penalty kick is difficult enough, but stopping two in the same match is almost unheard of. The day after that draw with Sunderland is when Watt shared the text message from the bet. 

“And now, here we sit,” Watt said. “He’s beaten every record along the way and there’s only one record left that he hasn’t broken in the history of English football, which is old as hell. He’s setting records and so, it’s getting pretty serious.”

Trafford’s streak was so impressive that Watt started looking for houses in Cincinnati at one point. 

Although Trafford didn’t win the bet, he has managed to pull off one of the most remarkable seasons of any goalkeeper in English soccer history.