CINCINNATI — Myles Garrett has one last chance to set the NFL sack record Sunday in Cincinnati, and he has no doubt he’ll get it.
He needs one to break the record of 22.5 held by the Giants’ Michael Strahan and the Steelers’ T.J. Watt.
“My confidence hasn’t waivered,” Garrett said Friday. “I’m fully confident that it will come.”
Given that the Steelers and Aaron Rodgers held him without a sack during the Browns 13-6 victory last week, has he contemplated not getting it?
“No. You don’t think about what’s going to go wrong in your life, do you?” he said. “Just think about how to make it go right.”
Besides, Garrett has already sacked Joe Burrow 11 times in nine meetings, tied with Lamar Jackson for most against any QB. In the opener, a 17-16 Browns loss, Garrett sacked him twice.
“Would I have known (he’s at the top)?” Garrett said. “Absolutely. I’ve seen his face on the ground looking up at me saying, ‘Hi, Myles, and, hi, Joe’ too many times. So yeah, I figured he’d be at the top.”
Jackson caught up with a four-sack game in the Browns’ loss to the Ravens Nov. 16.
“Well, Lamar recently had to pick up some slack,” Garrett said. “He’s made me miss a little bit more than everybody else.”
Bengals coach Zac Taylor pushed back on Garrett’s assertion that the Steelers put preventing him from getting the record ahead of winning. They had a chance to clinch the AFC North with a victory.
“I don’t agree with that,” Taylor said Wednesday. “Every team goes in there with Myles Garrett on every single play, ‘what are we going to do with him?’ Pittsburgh was trying to win the game. The way to do that is you try to limit Myles Garrett. You watch every tape. Teams are doing everything they can to limit his effectiveness. Every run, pass, screen, naked. It all has 95 in mind.
“Our plan has never been any different. You want to limit his effectiveness. He makes as much of an impact on the game as any player in the NFL. Period. You think about 95 in your head every second of every week you’re playing the Cleveland Browns. You have to be ready for him.”
Burrow, who’s been sacked 15 times this season for 38th in the NFL, has no plans to avoid Garrett setting the record at all costs.
“I’m not gonna go out of my way to not let him get the record… I’m gonna go play football,” Burrow said Wednesday. “There are going to be situations where a sack is the best of the bad outcomes of that play.”
Garrett said the record doesn’t have to look a certain way, although he’s made it clear he wants it to come in a victory.
“No. They all count,” he said. “So I don’t care if I run his ass out of bounds. However he gets got, he gets got.”
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