Brock Purdy secures win for Niners in Week 17
USAT’s Joe Rivera and Chris Bumbaca break down Brock Purdy’s clutch plays and elite QB performance.
Sports Seriously
It all comes down to this for Myles Garrett and his pursuit of NFL history.
The Cleveland Browns defensive end will only have Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals to set the NFL single-season sack record. After getting out to a fast start, Garrett is stuck on 22 after being blanked last week in the penultimate game of the regular season. That leaves him a half-sack behind the mark held by Hall of Famer Michael Strahan and Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt.
Now, his hopes of entering the record book hinge on a takedown of Joe Burrow, whom Garrett has sacked 11 times in his career. That’s tied for first with Lamar Jackson in Garrett’s career.
Despite his chase coming down to the wire, Garrett isn’t concerned about coming up short again.
“My confidence hasn’t waivered,” Garrett said Friday. “I’m fully confident that it will come.”
USA TODAY Sports will have live updates of Garrett’s chase on Sunday, so check back here throughout the day for more:
Garrett certainly knows how to corral Burrow given his history of reaching the Bengals gunslinger. But even more important for the defensive end’s odds could be the quarterback’s approach.
After the Pittsburgh Steelers repeatedly chipped Garrett and reverted to quick-hit throws to neutralize his threat, Burrow said this week that the Bengals wouldn’t reconfigure their game plan to avoid ending up on the wrong side of NFL history.
“I’m certainly not going to overcompensate either way,” Burrow said. “I’m not going to go out of my way to not let him get the record, and I’m not going to go out of my way to let him get the record either. I’m going to go and play football.
“There’s going to be situations that a sack is the best of the bad outcomes of that play, and maybe I take one and there’s going to be other situations that I’m about to get sacked and I need to throw it away in that situation. It’s such a situational game that I don’t think you can go in thinking one way or the other. Every play is so different.”
Bengals coach Zac Taylor said that preparing for the Browns necessitates taking a long look at how to prevent Garrett from wrecking a game.
“Our plan has never been any different. You want to limit his effectiveness,” Taylor said. “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.”
Michael Strahan first set the mark in 2001, and T.J. Watt later equaled it in 2021. The former set the mark in 16 games, while the latter played 15 games in a 17-game season.
Sacks: 22Tackles: 59Forced fumbles: 3