Houston Texans: Can J.J. Watt Maintain His Production?

Aug 2, 2014; Canton, OH, USA; Michael Strahan poses with his bust at the 2014 Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement at Fawcett Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

How J.J. Watt Compares To The Greatest Pass-Rushers Ever

To see how J.J. Watt matches up against some of the league’s all-time greats, I chose four other great pass rushers to compare him to: Bruce Smith, Reggie White, Jared Allen, and Michael Strahan. These players all rank in the top 10 on the career sack list, and also have had some of the best-ever single seasons rushing the quarterback.

Bruce Smith became the all-time NFL career sack leader (the league began to count sacks as an official stat in 1982) after amassing 200 sacks over 19 years with Buffalo and Washington. Smith started at age 22 and played until he was 40, one of the longest careers in NFL history. Smith never managed to get to 20 sacks in a season, but his longevity allowed him to take a massive amount of quarterbacks to the ground.

Reggie White is second on the career sacks list with 198 after 15 seasons with Philadelphia, Green Bay, and Carolina. He didn’t play as long as Smith, but averaged an amazing 13.2 sacks per year for his entire career, and only had two seasons where he recorded less than 10 sacks.

Michael Strahan holds the record for the most sacks in a single season at 22.5, and had two seasons with over 18 sacks in his 15 year career with the New York Giants. Jared Allen is the only player other than J.J. Watt on this list that is still playing. He is tied for second on the single-season sack list with 22, has twice led the NFL in sacks for a season, and will almost certainly move into the top five of the career sack list before he retires. He’s currently in his second year in Chicago, after playing in Minnesota and Kansas City for 10 years, and has the most sacks of any active player.

If there is anything made clear from this chart of the careers of some of the NFL’s greatest all time quarterback-punishers, it’s that sacks fluctuate greatly. Even Bruce Smith, the greatest pass-rusher of all time had six seasons with under 10 sacks, including one where he only recorded 1.5 sacks. Some of the best defenders in history all experienced their off-years, and none were able to truly maintain their peak production for several seasons in a row.

The most consistent of these players was Reggie White, who averaged 0.85 sacks per game. By contrast Smith averaged 0.71, Strahan averaged 0.66, and Jared Allen is averaging 0.78. J.J. Watt, on the other hand, is leading these greats by averaging 0.89 sacks per game. It’s almost a guarantee that Watt will get to the quarterback at some point every time he suits up. Almost a guarantee. Even the league’s best pass rushers don’t manage a sack every single game.

Watt, however, is among the best when it comes to consistency. He gets to the quarterback at a higher rate than any of the defenders on the top 10 all-time sack list. Most of the top 10 are hovering right about 0.7 sacks per game, as opposed to Watt’s 0.89. This may not seem like much, but over a 200 game career (13 seasons), this difference would account for roughly 40 sacks. That’s a lot of quarterbacks pulling grass out of their facemasks.

At Watt’s current rate, if he could manage to play as long as Bruce Smith, he will end up with 270 sacks, a number that may be impossible to ever beat. And Watt has only played four seasons, meaning his rookie number of 5.5 sacks counts for a pretty hefty percentage of his total. If he maintains the pace he’s been on since 2012, he could end up with a career number of over 320 sacks. According to J.J. Cooper of Football Outsiders, quarterbacks often average 5-7 yards lost per sack, that’s about 2,000 yards that opposing teams would be losing, or the equivalent of twenty-five 80 yard drives.

So I’ve just thrown a ton of numbers out there, but what do they all mean, and how do they play into the question at hand: Can J.J. Watt maintain his excellent production?

Next: Can J.J. Keep It Up?