Veteran OLB T.J. Watt claimed yet another record on Sunday—or rather, at least two. With his three sacks of San Francisco 49ers QB Brock Purdy, he not only tied OLB James Harrison for the most sacks in franchise history at 80.5, he also tied Harrison—again—for the most games with three or more sacks, with six. In doing so, he broke a tie for second place with Joey Porter Sr.
On Monday against the Cleveland Browns, he can make yet another mark in the Steelers’ record books if he notches a sack or more of QB Deshaun Watson—or whoever else happens to be operating at quarterback at the time.
Entering the game with 15 career sacks against the Browns, he is just one behind Harrison in team history for the most sacks ever recorded against a single opponent. Harrison recorded 16 career sacks against the Baltimore Ravens. Watt already has 12 against the Ravens as well, by the way.
Mind you, Harrison played 177 games in Pittsburgh, including 107 starts. Watt is up to 88 starts in the same number of games. Barring his injury last season, he is in the midst of one of the great runs of defensive dominance in NFL history.
And as the list supplied by Michael Bertsch of the Steelers’ public relations department shows, he also has a history of coming up big in divisional play, which is pretty significant. The fact that he already holds two of the top four all-time sack totals against any team in franchise history is remarkable and yet not surprising.
Many of you will be naturally asking how many sacks he must have against the Cincinnati Bengals. He has nine sacks so far in 11 career games against them, so he could hit double digits this year—perhaps even get into the top four against all three of the Steelers’ divisional opponents.
I think it’s safe to say that there will be few if any sack records in franchise history that Watt will not own by the time he is done playing, assuming he remains healthy, no matter how niche. And we certainly should not overlook the importance of playing well within the division.
Entering Monday’s game, Watt has played in 33 divisional games. He has 36 sacks in those games, including eight multi-sack games. That is more than the number of games (seven) in which he failed to record a sack against a divisional opponent.
And in case you’re wondering, the Steelers are 24-8-1 in the division when Watt plays, whether he records a sack or not. The guy is pretty good, so I hear, and he makes a difference when he is out there on the field and healthy. All you have to do is look back to last season when he was hurt.
