Despite the valiant efforts of many on the day, there is only one man standing atop the NFL’s sack list so far through three games. It’s the Pittsburgh Steelers’ T.J. Watt, who has two multi-sack games already and a full sack or better each week. He has six through three games, one better than the Minnesota Vikings’ Danielle Hunter, and one and a half over the Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett, who collected most of his sacks yesterday.
After recording one sack in the season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals, Garrett failed to register on the official stat sheet behind a tackle against the Steelers in the second game of the season. Yet he went off on the Tennessee Titans with a career-high 3.5-sack showing, vaulting him above anybody’s two-week totals to 4.5.
“3.5 sacks on the day”, the team’s social media account on Twitter boasted. “it’s Myles and then everybody else. stop playing with all these other names”.
As we’ve talked about recently, Cleveland’s social media manager certainly seems to enjoy running his mouth whenever things are going well—not so much when they lose. It was pretty much all business when the Steelers beat them last week and Watt returned a fumble for the game-winning touchdown.
But now it’s back to zingers with their win over Tennessee, making puns at the Titans’ expense.
Perhaps it’s pent-up aggression from the many, many years of losing and all of the missed opportunities to do some trash talking, since it’s much harder to do so while getting pummeled. Yet while Garrett did have more sacks on this particular day, it’s Watt who leads the league, as he has in each of the last three seasons in which he has been fully healthy.
The debate for the greatest pass rusher in the game is, frankly, exhausting. The reality is that there are several truly excellent, generational talents running right now, although there seems to be a broad consensus on the top four. Watt and Garrett are in there, as are Nick Bosa, who is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, and the Dallas Cowboys’ Micah Parsons.
Parsons, too, is up to four sacks on the year, notching another one yesterday among his five tackles. Matt Judon of the New England Patriots currently sits at four, while numerous players, including Joey Bosa, have three sacks.
We’re all dealing with a small sample size of three games, of course, which is not even one-fifth of a season. So far this year, the league’s best players by reputation have also been among the league’s best players by execution and production as well.
But it’s Watt who is the production leader, with six sacks, two forced fumbles, and a touchdown to his name. His 12 quarterback hits also lead the league. So I think he has as good a case as any to play around in the conversation as the best defensive player in the game—especially considering he was named just that the last time he was healthy. And he seems to be on track to reach that same plateau again.
