Jacksonville Jaguars: Calais Campbell’s record-breaking season
By Larry Brake
Calais Campbell broke the Jacksonville Jaguars season sack record and looks to pad his record through the rest of the 2017 season.
Tony Brackens recorded 12 sacks in 1999 to set the Jacksonville Jaguars single season sack mark. In 2001, Brackens had 11 sacks. Calais Campbell broke Brackens’ record in 12 games. Campbell was a huge free agent signing this spring. Jacksonville signed him to a four-year deal worth $60 million according to spotrac.com. This is money well spent to bolster the young defense.
Phillip Heilman of Jacksonville.com offered up Doug Marrone’s take on Campbell breaking the record:
"“I know individually his name is going to go on [the sack record], but you can’t get those things if the guys in the back end aren’t covering,” Jaguars coach Doug Marrone said. “They did an outstanding job there.”"
The addition of Campbell has solidified the defense due to his leadership skills. He makes the other players on the defense better. Yannick Ngakoue led the team in sacks last season with eight. Ngakoue, through 12 games, has 10 sacks this season, due in no small part to Campbell’s impact
Jacksonville had three players with double digit sacks back in 1999. Brackens had 12 sacks. Kevin Hardy recorded 10.5 sacks and Gary Walker had 10. The Jaguars could possibly have four players with double-digit sacks this season.
Currently, going into week 14, Campbell has 12.5 sacks and Ngakoue has 10. Dante Fowler Jr. has 6.5 sacks and Malik Jackson has six. It is very possible for Fowler and Jackson to add to their totals in the remaining games.
Campbell ranks 21st on the franchise sack leaders list. He is only 42.5 sacks behind Brackens’ total of 55. Since he is signed for the next three seasons, Campbell might become the franchise sack master.
Michael Strahan had 22.5 sacks in 2001 to set the NFL’s single season sack record. There are four games left to play this season and two teams, Houston and San Francisco, that Campbell could have multiple sacks. He needs 10.5 sacks in the last four games to become the NFL’s single season sack leader.
Next: NFL 2017: 20 Bold predictions for Week 14
Every football player dreams of winning the Super Bowl. There are teams that have won multiple times and there are teams with multiple losses. However, Jacksonville has never played in the Super Bowl. The greatest milestone for Campbell would be, to help lead the team to winning the Lombardi Trophy. There has been Super Bowl talk recently, but Jacksonville needs to take one game at a time.