Pittsburgh Steelers OLB T.J. Watt had one of the softest sacks of his career on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens. With Preston Smith providing the initial pressure, Watt earned credit for a full sack by ushering Lamar Jackson out of bounds. Despite the lack of flair to the proceedings, it was still a momentous sack.
Yes, it gave Watt 7.5 sacks on the season and 104 for his career, which is nice. But it also brought Watt up to 17 career sacks against the Baltimore Ravens—the most in NFL history. He entered the day tied with former Steelers teammate James Harrison at 16 but is now in his own league.
In fact, nobody else is even close to T.J. Watt and James Harrison. A pair of Cincinnati Bengals stalwarts, Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap, place third and fourth, but distantly so. Atkins recorded 10.5 sacks against the Ravens, while Dunlap recorded 10. Javon Kearse had 9, while Myles Garrett has 8.5, tied with LaMarr Woodley, and half a sack ahead of Cameron Heyward.
Now, to be fair, the Ravens are one of the easiest teams to hold the all-time sack record against for a current player. The Ravens have only been around officially since 1996, 15 years after the inauguration of the sack as an official statistic. Another advantage for T.J Watt is the fact that the Browns and Bengals—the other teams that always play the Ravens twice a season—rarely have the sort of player retention Steelers standouts enjoy.
But facts are facts and records are records, and Watt now has more sacks against the Ravens than anybody. I should note, however, that that number only includes the regular season. If you include the postseason, James Harrison has 19 sacks in total. And LaMarr Woodley jumps to third with 11.5. But these sorts of “records” are always exclusive of postseason numbers.
Considering the Steelers play the Browns and Bengals next, we ought to look ahead to those games as well. Currently, T.J Watt has the second-most sacks against the Browns in NFL history. He has 17 in his career, which is two behind Ravens star Terrell Suggs with 19. Cameron Heyward could climb into a tie for third place with one more sack to bring him to 12.5.
After that is the Cincinnati Bengals, following a “mini bye” for the Steelers coming off a Thursday game. As it turns out, a Steelers defender already holds this record: Heyward, with 13.5. But T.J. Watt isn’t far behind with 12. That is tied (with Myles Garrett and Jason Gildon) for the third-most all-time, behind Terrell Suggs’ 12.5.
While it would take some doing, there is a realistic chance that Watt becomes the all-time sack leader against three different franchises in a span of three weeks. Hitting the mark for the Ravens was the easiest, considering he was already tied. He needs 2.5 sacks to claim the top spot against the Browns and 2 for the Bengals record. And with Heyward on top and Garrett tied with him in third, that one is a moving target.
