Steelers Lead NFL In Sacks For Fifth Consecutive Season, Extending Record – Steelers Depot

The Pittsburgh Steelers entered the end of the regular season with 52 sacks, leading by five sacks over the next closest team. They got three more against the Baltimore Ravens, which was actually slightly less than anticipated, and only one was from TJ Watt, though it was enough to tie the all-time sack record in a season.

The Minnesota Vikings had seven sacks in their final, but still fell four behind Pittsburgh, and were the closest team. The Los Angeles Rams finished one behind the Vikings, at 50. That means the Steelers led the NFL in sacks in 2021 with 55.

And it was the fifth season in a row that they led the league in sacks, or at least shared the co-lead. They already set a new NFL record a year ago for the most consecutive seasons leading the NFL in sacks with four, so they’re just extending their record right now.

Not only have they led the league in sacks, but they have racked up more than 50 sacks in each of those seasons. They had 56 last year, 54 the year before, 52 the year before, the year in which they shared the league lead. In 2017, they set a new franchise record with 56 sacks, which was of course the most in the league that season, and which they equaled in 2020.

That’s 273 sacks in the last five seasons, an average of 3.37 sacks per game over that span (and yes, I do keep in mind that the 2021 season was a 17-game year, as will be until the NFL expand to an 18-game regular season schedule).

The only other team to ever lead the league in sacks in three consecutive seasons was the Oakland Raiders, and that was before sacks were an official statistic. As we wrote about last season when they broke the mark, the Raiders, an AFL team, had the most sacks in each of the seasons between 1966 and 1968.

The Steelers set, or rather tied, yet another record, becoming the fourth team in NFL history to record 50 or more sacks in five consecutive seasons. Interestingly, three teams did it all at the same time near the start of the sack era.

The sack became an official statistic in 1982. From 1983 to 1987, the Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins had more than 50 sacks. That’s quite a remarkable consistency streak, no matter how you look at it.

And it goes without saying that much of that consistency is due to TJ Watt, who is establishing himself as one of the great defenders of his generation. He just tied the NFL season-long sack record, as mentioned, at 22.5, but he has 72 sacks in his career, which began in 2017, when his streak began. He has accounted for more than 26 percent of his sacks since joining the league.

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Steelers Lead NFL In Sacks For Fifth Consecutive Season, Extending Record – Steelers Depot