It is well documented that Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt is a master of sacking the quarterback. He has 96.5 sacks in 104 games played and has led the league in sacks in three individual seasons, becoming the first player to do so since they started tracking sacks as an official stat. He is also tied at 22.5 for the single-season record with former New York Giants DE Michael Strahan.
There is another stat that he has dominated since his entry into the league in 2017—QB hits. This stat began being tracked in 2006 via Pro Football Reference, and Watt is already about one season away from being among the top ten in recorded history. Here are the top 30 players for QB hits since it started being tracked with an asterisk next to players that were active for part of their career before it became a stat and bold if they are still currently active.
| Player | Games | Starts | Sacks | QB Hits |
| J.J. Watt | 151 | 151 | 114.5 | 317 |
| Carlos Dunlap | 197 | 125 | 100 | 267 |
| Aaron Donald | 154 | 150 | 111 | 260 |
| Calais Campbell | 244 | 225 | 105.5 | 254 |
| Von Miller | 173 | 161 | 123.5 | 248 |
| *DeMarcus Ware | 178 | 173 | 138.5 | 229 |
| *Jared Allen | 187 | 181 | 136 | 228 |
| Cameron Jordan | 209 | 208 | 117.5 | 225 |
| *Cameron Wake | 155 | 126 | 100.5 | 224 |
| Ndamukong Suh | 199 | 191 | 71.5 | 214 |
| Chandler Jones | 154 | 151 | 112 | 210 |
| *Terrell Suggs | 244 | 226 | 139 | 200 |
| Clay Matthews | 156 | 150 | 91.5 | 200 |
| Everson Griffen | 170 | 96 | 85.5 | 200 |
| T.J. Watt | 104 | 104 | 96.5 | 198 |
| Michael Bennett | 156 | 101 | 69.5 | 193 |
| Elvis Dumervil | 162 | 99 | 105.5 | 190 |
| *Julius Peppers | 266 | 240 | 159.5 | 186 |
| Justin Houston | 170 | 151 | 112 | 185 |
| Cameron Heyward | 194 | 159 | 80.5 | 179 |
| Robert Quinn | 169 | 142 | 102 | 178 |
| Chris Jones | 123 | 102 | 75.5 | 175 |
| Fletcher Cox | 188 | 182 | 70 | 173 |
| Leonard Williams | 142 | 133 | 43.5 | 173 |
| Myles Garrett | 100 | 97 | 88.5 | 172 |
| Geno Atkins | 161 | 134 | 75.5 | 172 |
| Khalil Mack | 151 | 150 | 101.5 | 170 |
| Jason Pierre-Paul | 182 | 150 | 94.5 | 167 |
| Matt Judon | 114 | 82 | 66.5 | 165 |
| DeForest Buckner | 129 | 125 | 61 | 161 |
Watt has 198 QB hits, which works out to about 1.9 per game played. He is averaging 28.3 per season, and if you toss the injury season in 2022 and his rookie season in 2017, that number jumps to 34.6. That pace would place him in sixth by the end of next season with just three active players ahead of him, Aaron Donald, Calais Campbell, and Von Miller. It is already well known that Watt gets a lot of sacks, but he is also converting his pressures into hits on the quarterback at an impressive rate.
Why should you care about this stat? In this day and age of advanced analytics and Pro Football Focus grades, a heavy emphasis is being placed on impact outside of the regular stat sheet. Things like total pressures, double team rates, and pass-rush win rates dominated the conversation in this year’s Defensive Player of the Year race. But if you prefer to rely on more objective statistics that do not vary from outlet to outlet, QB hits are a good way of looking at how many times a pass rusher is actually impacting the quarterback with a hit as they are releasing the ball.
At this pace, Watt is well on his way to reaching rarified air with his level of disruption on opposing quarterbacks, though it will be a challenge to catch up to his brother J.J.’s absurd 317 QB hits. The next closest player above Watt on this list in terms of games played is his brother with 47 more games, or almost three extra seasons worth of games. When it comes to active players near the top of this list, nobody even comes close to his pace of production.
