Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett broke the NFL's single-season sacks record on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals with his 23rd on the season.
After being held without a sack last week, Garrett entered the 18th and final week of the regular season with 22, a half-sack away from the record shared by T.J. Watt (2021) and Michael Strahan (2001).
Garrett beat the Bengals' left tackle on a rush upfield with 5:16 to play in the fourth quarter and smothered quarterback Joe Burrow as he fell to the turf in Cincinnati.
Teammates surrounded Garrett for a brief celebration on the sideline before he returned to the field just one play later.
Though the NFL first recognized sacks officially in 1982, some accounting suggests Garrett is not the first player to reach 23 sacks in a season. Researchers who have studied past game logs and footage have said that Al "Bubba" Baker also recorded 23 sacks in 1978 with the Detroit Lions. That total is not recognized by the league, however, as it came before 1982.
While the season is lost — the Browns will miss the playoffs for the eighth time in Garrett's 10 seasons in Cleveland — this has been a career-best year for Garrett. The gulf between Garrett and the rest of the league's defenders is so wide that the 5.5-sack difference between his league-best sack total and the No. 2-ranked player — Brian Burns of the Giants, with 16.5 — is the same as the gap between Burns and the ninth-ranked player.
Garrett's previous season high in sacks was 16, and in tackles for loss was 22; this season, in addition to entering Week 18 with 22 sacks, he had a league-best 32 tackles for loss.
