HOUSTON -- Texans defensive end J.J. Watt will have surgery Tuesday to repair a groin injury he aggravated against the Chiefs on Saturday.
"We'll get it taken care of, and I'll be fine," Watt said Sunday. "We'll get it diagnosed tomorrow, but I'll have surgery on Tuesday."
Watt doesn't know what the exact injury is, but he said he knows something will have to be fixed. He left Saturday's 30-0 loss in the third quarter and wasn't allowed to return.
"It's something we've been dealing with for probably six or seven weeks now, and our training staff has done a great job of just getting me out there on the field so I could play," Watt said. "Yesterday was kind of the breaking point. Lot of credit to our training staff, they've done an unbelievable job."
Watt first missed a practice with the injury on Dec. 2 but hasn't missed a game with it. A week later, on Dec. 9, Watt broke his hand during practice. He played with a club-shaped cast that constricted his fingers against the Patriots, Colts and Titans, and notched one sack during that stretch. Watt was able to play without a cast in the Texans' regular season finale against the Jaguars and had three sacks and two passes defensed. The hand injury will not need any surgical repair.
"The hand is almost all the way done now," Watt said. "It's maybe a week or two away from being 100 percent again. It's definitely good enough to do almost every activity."
Watt led the league in sacks with 17.5 anf also had 50 quarterback hits and eight batted passes during the regular season. If he wins defensive player of the year this year, he will become the first player since Lawrence Taylor in the 1980s to have won the award in three different seasons and the first since Taylor to have won the award in back-to-back years. Watt was also named defensive player of the year in 2012 and 2014. Taylor won the award in 1981, 1982 and 1986, when he was also named the league's MVP.
"I mean it would be obviously an honor, but like I just said, the goal is to win a world championship," Watt said. "Individual awards are great and I'm very much appreciative of them and I work my ass off for them, but I want to win as a team."