Throughout the illustrious history of the Pittsburgh Steelers, elite pass rushers dot the timeline for the Black and Gold.
From Mean Joe Greene and L.C. Greenwood in the 1970s to Mike Merriweather in the ’80s, all the way until now with the likes of T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, the Steelers have always identified with pass rushers being the focal point of the defense.
Knowing that, it’s no surprise that in ESPN’s Pass Rusher Championship Belt story penned by Bill Barnwell Thursday, a pair of Steelers were awarded the Pass Rusher Championship Belt for a given year. That would be Hall of Famer Kevin Greene in 1994 and Watt in 2021.
Greene, who spent three seasons with the Steelers from 1993-95, was awarded the pass rusher belt for the 1994 season by Barnwell. That season, Greene finished with 14.0 sacks, was a first-team All-Pro and Pro Bowler and finished sixth in the Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year voting.
“Greene proved his greatness as a pass-rusher by doing it all around the league. After back-to-back 16.5-sack seasons highlighted his first run with the Rams, Greene left in free agency and joined the Steelers in 1993. He led the league in sacks the following season with 14 while forming the most feared one-two punch alongside Greg Lloyd. Lloyd actually finished ahead of Greene in the Defensive Player of the Year balloting (for an award that eventually was won by Deion Sanders in his lone season with the 49ers), but Greene was the more productive pass-rusher,” Barnell writes. “He would go on to have another 14.5-sack season with the Panthers in 1996, then a 10.5-sack season with the 49ers in 1997 before hitting double digits two more times afterward with Carolina.
“It was a down 1994 for most of the league’s top pass-rushers, so Greene is one and done here, but he’s the only player during the ‘official’ sack era to generate at least 10 sacks on four different teams.”
Greene was a downright force in the 1994 season, helping the Steelers finish 12-4 and reach the AFC Championship Game where they were shockingly upset by the San Diego Chargers, 17-13, at Three Rivers Stadium. The ’94 season should have been a Super Bowl year for the Black and Gold, but they came up painfully short behind the Blitzburgh defense.
Prior to Greene earning the Pass Rush Championship Belt from Barnwell in the ’94 season, Green Bay’s Reggie White earned the belt for the 91-93 seasons, while Buffalo’s Bruce Smith held the belt in 1990. After Greene’s year in ’94, Barnwell gave the belt back to Smith from 95-97. White later grabbed the belt back for the 1998 season before Tampa Bay’s Warren Sapp pushed his way into the discussion for the 1999 and 2000s seasons.
In the 2000s, Michael Strahan, Jason Taylor, DeMarcus Ware, Jared Allen and J.J. Watt held the pass rush belt, as did the likes of Von Miller and Aaron Donald before T.J. Watt ascended to grab the belt in 2021.
That season, Watt won the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year Award, tying the league’s single-season sacks record with 22.5 on the year. He had another 21 tackles for loss to lead the league and added five forced fumbles on the year as Pittsburgh went 9-7-1 and lost in the first round of the AFC playoffs to the Kansas City Chiefs, 42-21.
“I would be derelict in my duties if I didn’t award the 2021 title to the younger Watt brother, though. After slowly working his way up from 13 sacks in 2018 to 14.5 in 2019 and 15 in 2020, he had one of the most dominant pass-rushing seasons in league history,” Barnwell writes. “He tied the single-season record with 22.5 sacks in 15 games. He followed in J.J.’s footsteps by leading the league with 21 tackles for loss and added 39 quarterback knockdowns. Watt won 42 of 50 Defensive Player of the Year votes, so I’m not alone in feeling like he was on a level of his own in 2021.”
Watt was a wrecking ball in 2021 for the Steelers, dominating from start to finish that season. Watt recorded double-digit sacks in six games that season and had three games with at least 3.0 sacks, including a 4.0 sack game against the Browns in Week 17 of that season.
No other pass rusher that season was close to Watt. He was simply dominant. The next closest player in sacks that season was Chicago’s Robert Quinn with 18.5, showing just how great Watt was overall.
