Longtime Rams fans know just how good the team’s defensive line was in the 1960s and ‘70s thanks to the sheer dominance of Deacon Jones and Jack Youngblood. However, younger fans may not fully appreciate just how good those two Hall of Famers were in their primes.
Pro Football Reference is thankfully here to provide some context, though.
Thanks to nearly 30 years of research, Pro Football Reference has added sack totals for players who suited up before 1982, when sacks became an official NFL stat. Up to this point, there have been estimates of how many sacks some of the game’s best pass rushers had, but PFR did the work to find out their exact totals.
According to their decades of research and film work, Jones is now unofficially credited with 173.5 career sacks – third-most in NFL history. His teammate with the Rams, Youngblood, recorded 151.5 career sacks, which is good for sixth-most all-time.
As a result of this newfound data, three former Rams rank in the top six of career sacks, with Kevin Greene ranking fourth in league history (160.0 sacks). His total is official, since he played from 1985-1999.
Here’s a look at PFR’s new top-20 unofficial leaderboard for career sacks.
| Rank | Player | Sk | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bruce Smith+ | 200.0 | 1985-2003 |
| 2 | Reggie White+ | 198.0 | 1985-2000 |
| 3 | Deacon Jones+ | 173.5 | 1961-1974 |
| 4 | Kevin Greene+ | 160.0 | 1985-1999 |
| 5 | Julius Peppers | 159.5 | 2002-2018 |
| 6 | Jack Youngblood+ | 151.5 | 1971-1984 |
| 7 | Chris Doleman+ | 150.5 | 1985-1999 |
| 8 | Alan Page+ | 148.5 | 1967-1981 |
| 9 | Lawrence Taylor+ | 142.0 | 1981-1993 |
| 10 | Michael Strahan+ | 141.5 | 1993-2007 |
| 11 | Jason Taylor+ | 139.5 | 1997-2011 |
| 12 | Terrell Suggs | 139.0 | 2003-2019 |
| 13 | DeMarcus Ware | 138.5 | 2005-2016 |
| 14 | Richard Dent+ | 137.5 | 1983-1997 |
| John Randle+ | 137.5 | 1990-2003 | |
| 16 | Jared Allen | 136.0 | 2004-2015 |
| Rickey Jackson+ | 136.0 | 1981-1995 | |
| 18 | John Abraham | 133.5 | 2000-2014 |
| Carl Eller+ | 133.5 | 1964-1979 | |
| 20 | Leslie O’Neal | 132.5 | 1986-1999 |
Between Jones, Greene, Youngblood and Aaron Donald, four of the game’s best pass rushers ever suited up for the Rams at one point or another. Donald has 85.5 career sacks in seven seasons, so he would need to keep up that exact pace for another seven years in order to crack the top four ahead of Greene.
That’ll be challenging to do since he’s 30 years old, but no one should ever doubt the three-time Defensive Player of the Year – and the guy who almost never takes a day off.
He needs another 47 sacks to tie for 20th all-time, though other active players could also continue to rise up the list along with him. And while he may never reach the top 20, he’ll be regarded as arguably the best defensive tackle in NFL history.