Thanks to two sacks in Sunday’s win over the Cincinnati Bengals, T.J. Watt is back on top of the NFL sack leaderboard. With Monday night’s game between the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears in the books, and we hope you liked your heavy dose of turnovers and field goals, Watt is officially the sack leader through the season’s first 12 weeks.
Here are the top five sack artists of the season.
NFL Sack Leaders Through Week 12
1. T.J. Watt – 13.5
1. Danielle Hunter – 13.5
3. Khalil Mack – 13.0
3. Myles Garrett – 13.0
5. Josh Allen – 12.0
Watt tied for first with a pair on his heels. Mack had two sacks in the Los Angeles Chargers’ Sunday night loss to the Baltimore Ravens, giving him four in his last two games. Garrett is having a career year and his shoulder injury doesn’t seem as serious as initially feared.
Initially credited with just a half-sack on a strip-sack/fumble of QB Justin Fields, Hunter was later credited for the full sack, allowing him to tie Watt for first place. Hunter is one of the league’s most underrated pass rushers and should be given his due, especially after a performance like tonight’s.
Of course, it’s possible Watt also gets extra credit. He could’ve easily been given a half-sack on this takedown of QB Jake Browning in the second half of Sunday’s win. Instead, DL Cam Heyward was credited for the entire sack, Watt joking he’ll give the old man the play. Now, he might want that back.
Odds are the stats will stay the same and Heyward will keep his full sack. But if the scorer’s change their mind, Watt’s total would boost to 14 and he’ll take over sole place of the leaderboard.
As we wrote about in Monday’s stat of the weird, Watt’s 13.5 sacks through his first 11 games of the season is a career-high. It even bests what he did in his record-tying 2021 campaign, 12.5 sacks through his first 11, though he missed two full games and parts of others due to injury.
At current 2023 pace, Watt is on track to finish the season with 20.8 sacks. Round down to the nearest half-sack and that gives him 20.5. It puts him in striking distance to tie his mark and of course, threaten to break the league’s official sack record (the unofficial mark is held by Al ‘Bubba’ Baker and his 23 as a rookie in 1978, four years before the NFL officially recognized the category).
Bigger picture, though Watt isn’t focused on awards, it’s making for one of the closest DPOY races in some time. Watt, Garrett, Las Vegas’ Maxx Crosby, San Francisco’s Fred Warner, Dallas’ Micah Parsons and DaRon Bland (with his NFL record five pick-sixes in a single season) are all in the hunt. If Watt can finish the season on top, and certainly if he can finish with the sack record, he should win the award for a second time. He’ll have a chance to add to his total next Sunday against QB Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals, sacked nine times in his three starts since returning from a 2022 ACL tear.
