When it comes to preparation, Watt doesn't short himself. Even in his downtime, he goes long and strong. From his high-volume, calorie-intensive (he eats an average of seven meals a day) and admittedly bland diet, to his retirement-home sleeping schedule, to his romantic life (or lack thereof), Watt is a man who puts football first, and is essentially putting off everything else until his playing days are done.

This is not to say that Watt is living a Spartan existence. He spent the first few months of his offseason holed up in a log cabin he purchased in the Wisconsin countryside, one he initially described to reporters as "minimalistic." It turned out the 4,500-square-foot house had plenty of amenities; however, it did afford Watt the privacy and training-intensive focus he craves.

"I mean, it's a beautiful home," Watt says. "It's on 36 acres, so my favorite thing to do is just walk the land. I love to go to the back of the property and walk all the way around it and just kind of think. In the wintertime, obviously, I like to hang out by the fireplace. And in the cabin, when you come into the main living room area, there's no TV ... just a couple of couches and chairs. I did that purposely, because when people come over, I want it to be a conversation. I don't want everybody to immediately turn on the TV and not talk with each other. So I want to create an environment where we have engaging conversation. In today's world, everybody just flips on a TV or video game ... nobody talks to each other."

For Watt, the value in getting away was multi-pronged. "There are so many benefits," he says. "It's a chance for me to reconnect with my family and friends, 'cause my life is so crazy the rest of the year. It's a chance to go back with my trainer [Arnett], who I've been training with for nine years, since my sophomore year in high school. And then it's a chance to kind of reboot. I'm away from that craziness of the fame and the spotlight and everything, so that when I do come back, I'm ready for it ... I'm excited for it again."

When it comes to pushing himself to become a better football player, Watt's excitement borders on the fanatical.

"People ask me to describe him," Arnett says, "and this is the best I can do: He's like a high-school kid still trapped in the body of a 26-year-old professional athlete. There are times he doesn't know any different. From a mental standpoint, people ask, 'What gives him the edge?' It's that there's nothing he doesn't believe he can do. If I told him, 'OK, Jay, in order to get better today, we're gonna go out on this Honda 150 and do a wheelie for half a mile,' even if he had never ridden a motorcycle before, he still wouldn't hesitate and would believe that he would be capable of doing it. And he'd still feel that way, even if he fell on his face."

Watt's not big on falling, however. Consider this past April's announcement -- which Watt unveiled on social media -- that he had signed an endorsement deal with Reebok, highlighted by him jumping onto a box more than five feet high. Recalls Arnett: "We had a meeting with Reebok to talk about their new campaign, and Jay came up with the idea that he'd do a box jump and then hit the pump on his shoe. We came back to the gym and were talking about it, and he said, 'How high do you think I should go?' I told him, 'You've been at 59 inches. You've gotta make a splash. How about 61?' He said, 'Sure.' It was a Friday, and a bunch of kids came in for training stuff, and eventually he nailed it [on video] and everyone went crazy.

"On Tuesday, some Reebok people came back in and wanted to shoot some more video of him jumping and make it look the same as the Friday jump ... and they were gonna have him jump up to a much lower box. And he said, 'Why do we have to [stage] it?' He put the box at 61 -- and he did it five times in a row. With Jay, it's not, 'Do it till I get it right,' it's, 'I'm gonna do it till I never get it wrong.' "

And then, at the end of the day -- sometimes literally -- Watt shuts it down with a purpose, performing what amounts to a mic drop. On the field, the man is as fierce as a Tupac Shakur verse; off of it, he's white noise. Picture him rolling ... around in the sheets, fretting over a play he didn't make in practice ... at 7:30 p.m.