Three times, Deacon Jones produced 20+ unofficial sacks in the 1960s. ^[1]According to research done by John Turney. In 1967, Raiders defensive end Ben Davidson Ike Lassiter had 17 sacks ^[2]Source. in the AFL. Jack Youngblood and Jim Katcavage both led the league in sacks on two different occasions in the pre-1982 era. ^[3]Source: Turney/Webster Cincinnati Bengal Coy Bacon has been credited with 21.5 unofficial sacks during in 1976. The first team to record 60 sacks in a season was the ’57 Bears, and we can be sure that Doug Atkins recorded more than his fair share of that number. For players like Gino Marchetti, Norm Willey, and Len Ford, even unofficial records weren’t kept during their time, leaving us unsure as to who is the true sack king.

It’s important to remember that just because we don’t have official sack data before 1982 doesn’t mean there were great sack artists before then. But that’s a topic for another today. So while we can’t precisely measure how the forefathers of the game played, we do have official data for the last 30 years. So who has been the best pass rusher of the last three decades?

Brett, are you SURE you're okay?

Using total sacks isn’t a fair method to current players, or to those players who chose to retire instead of sticking around to compile six-sack seasons. So if we want to measure sack dominance, we can’t simply look at total sacks any more than we can grade running backs by looking at career rushing yards. One method I like that I’ve used before is sacks over one-half sack per game. This makes 8 sacks in a 16-game season the bar; a player only gets credit for their production over that level. This means that 12 sacks in a 16-game season brings a value of +4.00, while 16 sacks is twice as valuable at +8.00.There’s no great reason to choose 8 over 6 or 10 or any other number. I chose 8 because it feels right, but I don’t claim that it’s based on anything other than my personal, subjective preference.

In addition, there are two adjustments that I think help level the playing field. The first is an era adjustment, not unlike what you see when discussing wide receivers — except this one goes the other way. In 1984, the league sack rate was at 9.2%, but in 2009, it was just 6.5%. In other words, it was significantly easier for defenders to record sacks — on a per pass attempt basis — in 1984 than it was 25 years later. The other is to take into account the number of pass attempts each team faced. In 1984, Rulon Jones recorded 11 sacks for the Broncos, but Denver faced an incredible 688 pass attempts that season. Compare that to Jason Taylor, who had 11 sacks in 2007 for the Dolphins. That season, Miami faced just 439 pass attempts. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Taylor’s sack total was much more impressive. As a result, I’ve adjusted each player’s “sacks over 0.5 sacks/game” metric for era and based on the number of attempts his team faced.

Here are the single-season leaders for each of the last 30 years. In addition to listing the player’s sack totals, I’ve listed the number of pass attempts their teams faced per game, the league sack rate that season, the number of sacks over 0.5 games played, and then an adjusted score, which is how the table is sorted.

Lawrence Taylor in ’86 and Elvis Dumervil in 2009 provide good examples of how this system works. On the surface, Taylor’s 20.5 sacks looks well, 3.5 sacks better than Dumervil’s 17 quarterback takedowns. But we need to consider that from ’82 to ’11, the average sack rate was 7.43% and the average defense faced 34.84 pass attempts per game. Taylor in ’86 was fortunate enough to face 16% more pass attempts than the average player and he played in an era that was 11% more sack-friendly than the average player. Combined, that put him in an environment that was 29% more favorable for achieving sacks than the average player. Therefore, instead of calculating sacks over 0.50 games played for Taylor in ’86, we calculate his sacks over 0.65 games played, which represents a 29% increase in the size of the denominator. His 20.5 sacks therefore translates to 10.1 sacks over 0.65 games played.

Dumverill, however, played in an era where sack rates were just 87% of what they have been, on average, over the last three decades. Considering he also faced slightly fewer pass attempts per game, too, he will get credit for sacks over 0.43 games played. His 17 sacks means he also gets credited with a score of 10.1, because he gained 10.1 sacks over 0.43 games played.

We can also create career lists based on how each player performed in each season since 1982. I’ve eliminated all seasons where a player fell below the baseline, i.e., a season of fewer than 0.5 (adjusted) sacks per game played. But if we total all other seasons, we can get their career total of sacks over X games played.

Kevin Greene teaches Clay Matthews how to make those golden locks shine

It’s not too surprising to see Reggie White and Bruce Smith on top of the list. They’re the best two defensive ends of the official sack era, and also rank 1-2 in total sacks. Kevin Greene was a star 3-4 outside linebacker in Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Carolina and San Francisco; how many people know that he’s third on the official sack list? Greene wasn’t really a “compiler” either, although he did seem to play forever. He finished his career with double digit sacks in each of his last four seasons, and recorded 12 sacks for the Panthers in 1999 at the age of 37; in fact, he’s responsible for two of the five seasons of 12+ sacks by a player over the age of 35. Greene had a reputation for being extremely one dimensional, but few excelled at one dimension for as long as he did.

The next names have a more modern flair, and I’ll be honest, caused some head scratching on my part. Rice is an interesting guy: he was basically done after his tenth season, recording only three more sacks after turning 32. And he spent the first five seasons on miserable Cardinals teams, that had two borderline Hall of Famers on defense and little else on the roster. But Rice had a dominant prime: three times from ’99 to ’04 he ranked 2nd in the league in sacks. From ’98 to ’05, he was the only player to record 100 sacks. But what’s interesting about Rice’s production is that among elite pass rushers, no player faced fewer pass attempts.

Simeon Rice got to the quarterback on the rare occasion when his opponents passed.

From ’01 to ’06, the Bucs ranked in the bottom 8 in pass attempts faced each season. During his Cardinals days, Arizona ranked in the bottom five in pass attempts faced three different times. Rice doesn’t have extremely impressive career totals, but he’s one of just 8 players to record double digit sacks in 8 seasons since ’82. Considering the low number of pass attempts he faced, that production was enough to vault him into the fourth spot on the list. In that

Jared Allen and DeMarcus Ware slot behind Rice, and both just completed dominant seasons in 2011. I wrote a lot about Ware yesterday; as for Allen, he’s become the best pass rushing defensive end of this era. Both are at a “sack per game” pace over the last five years, and no one else is particularly close. Because of the lower sack rates in today’s NFL, Ware and Allen have vaulted ahead of some players who produced more sacks in more sack friendly environments. I guess that makes him the pass rushing version of a Paul Warfield, a wide receiver who played on run-oriented teams during a run-heavy era.

Comparing Derrick Thomas and Lawrence Taylor is interesting. Remember, the above table ignores the 9.5 unofficial sacks Taylor had his rookie season. Leaving out Taylor’s rookie year, the two played in a nearly identical number of games, and Taylor holds a slight edge in sacks. But Taylor faced more pass attempts and played the prime of his career during a more sack-friendly era; as a result, Thomas vaults him on the list.

I’ll close today with one more table, showing the top 50 pass rushers from the above table. The below focuses just on the adjustments you might want to make for each player. For example, let’s look at the second row of the final table. Mario Williams has a rank of 47, which is where he ranked on the top 50 pass rushers list above. He had 53 sacks from 2006 to 2011, and has a career total of 15.5 sacks over 0.5 games played (this is calculated per season). He has a weighted average in the “Attempts” column of 1.00, which means that he’s faced a perfectly average number of pass attempts (Simeon Rice is at 0.94, which means he’s faced only 94% as many pass attempts as the average pass rusher). Williams has a 0.87 in the ERA column, which means that in his era, sacks were only 87% as common as they were over the average of the last 30 years. The final column is the combined adjustment, which simply multiplies the “Attempts” and “Era” adjustments together. On the bottom of the list, you see players who dominated in the mid-1980s, when sack rates were north of eight percent. This table is a handy guide to understanding which players were helped and hurt most by factors largely out of their control.

There is nothing DeMarcus Ware could have done, or could do in the future, to convince most football fans that he ranks ahead of Lawrence Taylor in any all-time list. That’s not unique to Taylor; some would find it unfathomable to vault a cover corner over Deion Sanders, a middle linebacker over Dick Butkus, or a running back over Jim Brown. So let’s just get that out of the way. To many, ‘LT’ is the best 3-4 outside linebacker ever (if not best linebacker or defensive player, period) and that will never change. To them, this post won’t change your mind one bit. To others, allow me to make the case that when he retires, Ware will have been the best player to ever play his position.

The best 3-4 outside linebacker ever?

The 3-4 defense didn’t enter the NFL until 1974, when the scheme was brought to Houston, Buffalo and New England. Putting aside Taylor, the best outside linebackers to play in this scheme include names like Robert Brazile, Tom Jackson, Ted Hendricks, Clay Matthews, Andre Tippett, New Orleans’ Rickey Jackson and Pat Swilling, Kevin Greene, Greg Lloyd, Cornelius Bennett and Derrick Thomas. In today’s game, it’s probably Ware and Terrell Suggs, who also splits his time playing as a 4-3 end. With all due respect to Suggs, and other active stars like Tamba Hali, LaMarr Woodley and James Harrison, Aldon Smith, Clay Matthews and Cameron Wake, no current player has the body of work to compare to Ware.

The Cowboys star has been named an AP first-team All-Pro four times; among 3-4 outside linebackers, only Taylor has more selections. Taylor (10), Robert Brazile (7), Rickey Jackson (6) and Ware are the only 3-4 linebackers to have been named to six Pro Bowls, and Ware has been a selection in each of the last six years. Ultimately, outside of perhaps a vocal minority that would argue for Derrick Thomas over Taylor (and more on that tomorrow), Ware’s case as the best 3-4 outside linebacker of all-time comes down to whether you could put him ahead of Taylor as a player ^[1]Taylor’s legend appears to grow every year, and as a mythical or historical figure, Ware stands no chance of surpassing him..

The role of the 3-4 outside linebacker is complex, as a well-rounded player must be adept in pass coverage and capable at stopping the run. But the sexiest and most important role of the 3-4 outside linebacker is to get after the quarterback. A 3-4 outside linebacker, like a defensive end in a 4-3 or 5-2 scheme, shoulders the primary pass rush responsibilities for his defense. At least relative to other elite players at his position, Taylor was not particularly known for his coverage or run stuffing skills. What made him “LT” was his ferocious pass rushing ability. While certainly important, I don’t think we can get very far when comparing Taylor to Ware as a pass defender or a run stuffer. Over the last four years, Pro Football Focus has consistently rated Ware as not just excellent as a pass rusher, but elite in coverage and well above average in run support. But even putting those facets of their games aside, for those who view Taylor as the best 3-4 linebacker of all-time, nearly all of them also consider him the best pass-rushing 3-4 outside linebacker of all time. But how does he compare to Ware?

Ware has played in the NFL for seven seasons, accumulating 99.5 sacks in 112 games. In Taylor’s first seven seasons, he played in 101 games ^[2]Ten of those eleven missed games due to labor issues. and recorded 83 sacks. Ware has the edge there, averaging 0.89 sacks per game to Taylor’s 0.82 sacks per game. Since his second season, Ware has been unstoppable, averaging 15.25 sacks over his last six years. Taylor’s best six-year stretch (in terms of sacks per game) came from ’84 to ’89, when he recorded 87.5 sacks in 88 games, or 15.9 sacks per 16 games. But what looks like a slight edge to Taylor is actually a significant edge to Ware. Let’s take a closer look at Taylor’s peak (’84 to ’89) to the last six years for Ware.

Sack rates ^[3]Calculated as sacks divided by the sum of pass attempts and sacks. are significantly lower now than they were in the ’80s. From ’84 to ’89, the league average sack rate was roughly 8.3%, compared to just 6.6% over the past six seasons. Holding pass attempts equal, there are only 4 sacks in today’s game for every 5 sacks during Taylor’s prime. More advanced blocking schemes, shorter passing routes, rules changes, and a host of other factors have simply made sacks less common in today’s NFL. Since sacks occurred 25% more frequently 25 years ago, averaging 15.25 sacks per 16 games in today’s era is significantly harder to achieve than averaging 15.9 sacks per 16 games was in Taylor’s era.

The dominant defensive force of his era

Of course, that’s holding pass attempts equal. But this paragraph might surprise you. From ’84 to ’89, the Giants faced 3,278 pass attempts in the 88 games in which Taylor played. Remember, those Giants teams generally were very good, winning 67% of those games and sporting an excellent rush defense. As a result, New York’s opponents passed frequently, and often in obvious passing situations. It’s true that teams generally pass more often in modern times, but the Cowboys the last six years have faced 3,515 pass attempts. As a result, Taylor’s Giants (37.25) faced more pass attempts per game during his prime than did the Cowboys of 2006 to 2011 (36.6 pass attempts per game).

Considering the eras in which they played, and the number of pass attempts they faced, it’s easy to argue that Ware’s sack numbers are more impressive. Of course, the natural response from the Pro-Taylor camp would be that Taylor’s sack numbers understate his true value. What might be the reasons for that?

• An elite pass rusher is often the focus of the opposing offense, preventing him from piling up good sack numbers. But those Giants teams were stacked in the front seven. Leonard Marshall was an excellent 3-4 pass rushing defensive end and he lined up right in front of Taylor in the Giants base defense. He had 15.5 sacks in ’85 and 12 more in ’86, far more than any defensive end Ware has ever played with. Carl Banks, Harry Carson, Pepper Johnson and Gary Reasons were excellent linebackers who made Taylor’s life a lot easier. Jim Burt and Erik Howard both made Pro Bowls at nose tackle. Sure, defenses would focus on Taylor, but he played in one of the best front sevens of his era. I don’t think anyone would make the case that Ware’s supporting cast is on that same level (or all that close to it). Offenses spend the week before playing the Cowboys figuring out how to block DeMarcus Ware, just like they did with Taylor. But in Ware’s case, he’s often the sole elite force that blocking schemes need to account for. Taylor’s Giants played a 2-gap 3-4 scheme; with an athletic and powerful defensive end like Marshall in front of him, that made it even more difficult for offenses to get multiple blockers on Taylor.
• The “overrated because he plays for Dallas” line of reasoning is often invoked in sports arguments, but it doesn’t hold up when comparing him to a player on the Bill Parcells New York Giants. As far as hype goes, Taylor was fortunate enough to be at the intersection of playing in New York, being the dominant pass rusher in the league once sacks started being officially recorded, and being a dynamic and charismatic defensive star capable of making incredible highlights as ESPN began taking over the sports nation.
• One could argue — quite accurately — that sacks alone are a poor measure of pass rushing ability or just defensive disruption in general. And that’s true. If the Taylor supporters want to argue that while Ware was better at getting sacks, Taylor was better at hurrying and disrupting the quarterback, there would be little evidence to support or contradict that position. According to Pro Football Focus, Ware had 56 hurries in 2009, 20 more than the next best player. He added another 100 hurries the past two seasons, ranking 2nd in that metric in both years. And while Taylor forced 33 fumbles in his career, Ware is already at 27.

Taylor recorded just 18 sacks after his age 31 season; I suspect that Ware won’t suffer a similar dropoff and will have a more gradual decline. Absent injury, Ware is likely to end up with more career sacks than Taylor, and perhaps more than any 3-4 outside linebacker ever. Unless you want to argue that Lawrence Taylor was much better against the run the Ware, or that Taylor was much better in coverage than Ware, or that Taylor was a much better pass rusher but sacks alone don’t tell the story, Ware will likely end his career as the most productive 3-4 outside linebacker of all-time. Taylor will always be labeled as someone who ‘changed the game’ and ‘revolutionized a defense.’ But unless you want to argue that no one can ever run the two minute drill better than Johnny Unitas, no one could ever run pass routes better than Don Hutson, or no one could ever play bump and run coverage than Willie Brown, you have to consider that someone could come along and improve on what we’ve seen. In DeMarcus Ware, I think we’re seeing just that.