Tag: sacks

Cowboys’ DeMarcus Lawrence dodges injury while tying career-best sack total: ‘They just come in bunches’

Lawrence is now one sack behind Micah Parsons for the team lead; the veteran had a scare Monday night on the same foot he broke last year. | From @ToddBrock24f7

It’s been a long time coming for DeMarcus Lawrence.

On Monday night against the Giants, the Cowboys defensive end recorded three sacks, something he hadn’t done in a single game in almost exactly four years.

In fact, prior to Week 3’s triple-bagging of Daniel Jones, November 2018 was the last time Lawrence ended a game with more than one sack. And after being shut out in Weeks 1 and 2, the nine-year veteran was relieved to finally put an opposing quarterback on the ground again.

“The first two games didn’t go as well as I planned,” Lawrence told reporters in his postgame remarks following the 23-16 win. “Had to keep going out fighting, each and every day, to get to these sacks. They just come in bunches.”

But sacks haven’t come in single-game bunches like that for Lawrence very often. Monday’s Meadowlands trifecta tied his career-best; it’s a number he’s hit just twice before as a pro. (And oddly enough, all three of Lawrence’s three-sack games have come during the last week of September: in 2017, 2018, and now 2022.)

The bunches have been plentiful for the Cowboys as a whole unit, though. After getting to Jones five times, the team leads the NFL with 13 sacks after just three weeks. That pace would see them finish the year with a new single-season record, besting the 1984 Bears and their 72 sacks by one.

While 4.3 sacks per game would be a difficult rate to sustain, Lawrence was just happy to get himself on the team’s leaderboard. He’s in second place, one sack behind linebacker Micah Parsons… and he says he’s ready to overtake the reigning defensive Rookie of the Year next week versus Washington.

“Most definitely,” the former second-round draft pick out of Boise State promised.

The pair started a friendly bet during the summer, with the veteran Lawrence announcing that he wanted to lead the team in sacks again after giving up the crown to Parsons in just the youngster’s rookie campaign.

Parsons, for his part, has accepted the challenge, knowing that the competition only makes the Dallas defense more potent.

“Super excited,” Parsons said Monday night after the victory in New York. Parsons logged two quarterback hits, but no sacks in the contest. “He’s on my neck right now, telling me he’s coming for me. I owe Tank something. That’s the competitor; we expect that out of him. I believe he’s a premier top rusher in this league. I know he’s been itching, going through his injuries and things like that, but he’s been as dominant as can be recently. I can’t do this without him.”

For a while Monday night, though, it looked like he might have to.

Lawrence left the field in the third quarter with what appeared to be a foot issue. He stayed on the turf for a while talking with trainers, finally walking off under his own power. But he visited both the sideline medical tent and the locker room for further testing on his left foot, the same one he broke in 2021, subsequently missing 10 games.

Monday’s scare made for a nervous stretch of time, but Lawrence was able to return to the game in the fourth quarter, finishing the evening with six tackles to go with his trio of sacks on just 39 defensive snaps.

“I’m okay. The body should be hurting after a tough-fought win like that. I’ll be all right,” he assured media members afterward. “I didn’t know. I didn’t want to chance it and mess it up more than it what it was. But it was just a little soreness.”

Despite a short week coming in preparation for a visit from Washington, the 30-year-old vows he’ll be on the field: looking to add to his sack total, maybe with another bunch of them. That would put Lawrence ahead of his younger teammate, who maintains that their bet isn’t for more than anything except bragging rights… and a mutual desire to propel the Dallas defense even further this season.

“It’s just a respect thing,” Parsons explained. “It’s a competitive thing. Nothing on the line except who wants to be greater.”

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Ducks’ offensive line now sits as nation’s No. 1 team in one key stat

The Ducks’ offensive line now stands alone as the top unit in the nation when it comes to keeping the QB clean.

Coming into the 2022 college football season, we all knew the Oregon Ducks’ offensive line would be a huge strength of the team.

Now through four games, the numbers bear that out. The biggest number where the line is concerned is zero, which is the number of times quarterback Bo Nix has been sacked.

Oregon is the only team in the country not to allow a quarterback sack. The big test was this past Saturday at Washington State, which had 15 sacks through a trio of contests. After Oregon rolled through Pullman, they still have 15.

“Those guys went down and executed,” Oregon head coach Dan Lanning said after the 44-41 win in the Palouse. “Obviously, a lot of things didn’t go right in the first half, getting down in the red area and not being able to score, but to walk out of this game, without giving up a sack, that’s a credit to our offensive line. This is probably the most challenging look that we’ve seen upfront from Washington State.”

Stanford is the next team with the challenge of getting Nix to the turf. The Cardinal defense has six sacks this season. Given how this year has gone, it’s a good bet Nix will be safe in the pocket on Oct. 1.

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Statistical Breakdown: How the Saints and Panthers stack up before Week 3 game

Statistical Breakdown: How the Saints and Panthers stack up before Week 3 game

The New Orleans Saints (1-1) have built a reputation as road warriors, and they’ll be looking to lean on the style of play that’s helped them grind out so many wins away from the Caesars Superdome in Sunday’s game with the Carolina Panthers (0-2) on Sunday. Week 3 carries big ramifications for both NFC South teams.

Both squads need a win in the worst way. The Saints offense has played seven rough quarters of football against one heroic effort in the season opener, and their loss at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-0) last week stings. Carolina has lost each of their first two games this season, and they’re riding a nine-game losing streak that stretches back to last year. Here’s how the Saints and Panthers stack up statistically ahead of Sunday’s matchup:

When is it time to start worrying about the Saints pass rush?

The Saints pass rush has been slow to start against Tom Brady and Marcus Mariota, but Dennis Allen might be right to preach patience with his defensive line:

When is it time to start worrying about the New Orleans Saints pass rush? They’ve produced just one sack through two games, and they benched last year’s first-round draft pick, defensive end Payton Turner, after he struggled to make an impact in the season-opener. It’s been a pretty miserable situation to watch each week.

Now, with that said, there’s some important context to consider here. Tom Brady and Marcus Mariota have presented very different challenges to the Saints defense, so it’s understandable to see little pressure on them early on. Brady is the best quarterback in the game at reading the defense pre-snap and reacting quickly to get the ball to his receivers. Mariota is one of the better athletes you’ll see at the position around the league, and his coaches maximize that by designing a lot of throws on the run and from different launch points. As hard as Brady makes it to pressure him in the pocket, Mariota is an elusive target in the backfield.

So those are two different quarterbacks with very different play styles, and they both found success against the Saints. New Orleans doesn’t value speed off the edge; it’s why Zack Baun, an undersized sack artist in college, has been limited to a special teams role in the NFL. They want their defensive ends to be tall and long-armed to make for naturally-stout run defenders who overwhelm opponents with technique and power.

That’s a problem when you’re matched up with Brady and he’s getting the ball out in 2.32 seconds, as was the case on Sunday. The strongest ends in the NFL (and Cameron Jordan and Marcus Davenport are among them) won’t be able to beat their blocker and cover ground that fast. Brady knows that his processing speed is his strength, and he used it against them even to his detriment. His receivers dropped a couple of passes and saw many more fall incomplete because he was hurrying to get the ball out, often before they were ready for it. It’s why the Buccaneers offense gained fewer than 20 yards on all but four of their possessions, not including two kneel-downs. The Saints defense got the better of them for most of the afternoon, even if they weren’t’ sacking Brady.

What about the week before? Mariota was markedly slower to throw than Brady. He averaged 2.91 seconds before throwing, which is a lifetime in NFL terms; for context, his overall time of 3.09 seconds to throw ranks fourth-slowest among all quarterbacks to throw in both weeks this year, while Brady’s 2.26 is the fastest. And as we laid out earlier, chasing Mariota down is a unique challenge in itself. Between all of the pre-snap motion Atlanta dials up in the backfield, the designed rollouts and bootlegs, and Mariota’s real threat to take off and run, it’s another tough matchup for the Saints’ prototype at defensive end. You’re asking guys who weigh, at minimum, about 280 pounds and tower over others at 6-foot-6 to cut and turn on a dime. That’s not going to happen, or at least not happen often.

So what’s to be done? When asked about the lack of pressure, Dennis Allen expressed his satisfaction with the defensive line and preached patience, saying “The sacks will come.” Allen is known for getting blitz-happy when the situation calls for it, but he’s dialed up extra pressure on just 7 dropbacks through two weeks (out of 68 combined dropbacks for Brady and Mariota). And blitzing either of them doesn’t make sense: Brady is a master at reading those designed pressures and adjusting to the open patches of field left behind, while Mariota is the ideal athlete to tuck it and run when faced with a free running lane. Blitzing them isn’t the answer, but it could be the best path forward against other passers coming up next like Baker Mayfield, Kirk Cousins, and Geno Smith.

The Saints aren’t going to change the qualities they value in personnel and suddenly start fielding Baun or other speed rushers. They’re not going to keep playing unproductive players like Turner, either, just because he was drafted highly. Allen has a plan and a vision that has worked well (for the most part) for a few years now, and they’re going to stick to it, for better or worse.

Maybe things settle down and the back seven defenders step up to better contain these quarterbacks so that the big guys up front can get home. It’s a strategy that has worked before. We’ll have to wait it out and see. That’s still a frustrating proposition when you see an empty box score, a first rounder on the bench, and a game in the loss column.

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Falcons coach Arthur Smith already tired of Cameron Jordan sacking his QB

Falcons coach Arthur Smith is already so tired of Cameron Jordan sacking his quarterbacks that he’s offered to help the Saints DE find a media job:

It didn’t take long for Arthur Smith to figure out the deal. The Atlanta Falcons field a quarterback, and New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan sacks them. It’s what happened last season when Jordan notched two sacks in as many games with the division-rival Falcons. That’s the way it’s been for more than a decade, and that’s the way it’ll continue to go, until Jordan gets tired of it and graciously accepts a media job, anyway. And Smith offered his help in getting Jordan started in a new line of work, if he’ll have him.

“Cameron Jordan, I was kind of hoping he was going to go ahead and join you guys in the media. Maybe he needs to get a new talent agent. I probably could’ve helped him get more money,” Smith joked drily to 11 Alive News’ Maria Martin, acknowledging how impressive Jordan has been on the mic and in front of cameras, predicting it’ll set him up for a gig on a TV network in the future. He added, “You wouldn’t have to take on the double teams and cuts and chips I may be throwing at you on Sunday.”

Sweet as that offer may sound, Jordan isn’t ready to hang up his cleats just yet. He’s quickly closing in on the Saints’ franchise record for career sacks, trailing Pro Football Hall of Famer Rickey Jackson by just 8 takedowns — Jackson left New Orleans with an official tally of 115 sacks, with Jordan entering the 2022 season having logged 107 sacks of his own. And he’s just now beginning to show signs of slowing down after celebrating his 33rd birthday earlier this summer.

But Smith is right to point out Jordan’s bright future working in NFL media — the charismatic defensive end has been brilliant in that space, whether co-hosting a podcast with his teammate Mark Ingram II or sharing a spot on various morning show panels. He’s even worked as a sideline reporter for the XFL and hit the red carpet for some events. He’ll have his pick of job offers once his playing days are behind him. And if Smith has his way, that future will arrive sooner rather than later.

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Danielle Hunter believes he can break Jared Allen’s single-season sack record

Can a healthy Danielle Hunter break Jared Allen’s single-season sack record?

The Minnesota Vikings have a storied tradition on the defensive line. From the Purple People Eaters all the way up through today, the lineage is littered with Hall of Famers and members in the Vikings ring of honor.

The latest in the long line of great pass rushers is Danielle Hunter. A third-round pick out of LSU, Hunter burst on the scene in a big way. He had six sacks in his first season with a whopping 12.5 in 2016 as a second-year player.

With his success and 60.5 total sacks, new Vikings Ring of Honor inductee Jared Allen thinks Hunter has the potential to be one of the greats. Hunter one-upped Allen in telling him he’s going to break his team sack record.

That sack record was set by Allen in 2011, when he was a first-team All-Pro and second in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

Allen finished half a sack away from tying Michael Strahan’s record of 22.5 back in 2001. Hunter has three seasons of double-digit sacks with back-to-back years of 14.5 in 2018 and 2019.

His dominance on the defensive line is not too dissimilar to Allen and could make a case to break his team record.

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Return to rookie form would put Bradley Chubb 15th on Broncos’ all-time sack list

Bradley Chubb totaled 12 sacks as a rookie in 2018. Can he find that form again in 2022?

Denver Broncos outside linebacker Bradley Chubb had a big rookie season, totaling 12 sacks in 2018 after a standout career at NC State.

Since then, however, Chubb has been hit by various injuries, totaling just 8.5 sacks in his last 25 games. He had no sacks in seven games last year.

Chubb’s healthy again now, though, and he’s aiming to return to his rookie form. If he had another 12-sack season in 2022, Chubb’s career total would increase to 32.5, which would tie with Pete Duranko for the 15th-most in franchise history.

That would rank just above Rubin Carter (30 sacks) and just below Super Bowl 50 champion Derek Wolfe (33 sacks).

Chubb’s best production came when both he and then-teammate Von Miller were healthy. Miller’s gone now but the Broncos brought in a new pass rusher in Randy Gregory to team up with Chubb. Gregory has had his own battles with injuries and he’s even sidelined right now after undergoing a shoulder operation, but he’s expected to be healthy in time for the season.

Chubb and Miller combined for 26.5 sacks in 2018. Denver would love to see similar production from Chubb and Gregory this year. The first step toward that happening would be Chubb and Gregory managing to staying on the field. Broncos fans can only hope for good healthy for the two pass rushers.

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Cowboys’ Micah Parsons looks to top 2021 sack total; NFL single-season record is ultimate goal

Calling 15 “the minimum,” Micah Parsons wants the NFL single-season record for sacks, though what that number is depends on who you ask. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Micah Parsons feasted on quarterbacks as a rookie. But he’s coming back in his second season hungry for even more.

The reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year finished the 2021 season with 13 sacks, far surpassing the old Cowboys franchise record for a first-year player. He even came close to setting a new rookie mark for the entire league, but landing on the COVID-19 list for the team’s regular-season finale prevented him from the attempt.

Now entering his second season, the just-turned-23-year-old linebacker has set his sights even higher.

“Yeah, 15’s like the minimum,” Parsons told Cody Benjamin of CBS Sports recently. “Fifteen’s what I wanna hit. But definitely 23 is that goal, to break the record.”

Fifteen sacks last year would have broken the recognized rookie mark, 14.5, set by the Titans’ Jevon Kearse (coincidentally, the uncle of current Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse) in 1999.

Twenty-three sacks would top what Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt was able to do last year when he racked up 22.5. That feat- at least in the official record books- tied Michael Strahan’s 2001 effort (although most observers would say Strahan’s total comes with a big fat asterisk, as Brett Favre seemed to take a dive in their season finale to gift his friend the title).

Parsons will have a harder time in his sophomore season. He’s not a surprise any longer, for one. Teams know he could line up at either linebacker or defensive end and be equally effective. Opposing offenses have a full year’s worth of tape to use in creating blocking schemes to combat him.

The former first-round draft pick himself knows that much will be new in 2022, including the quarterbacks he’ll be seeing most often right in the NFC East.

“None of them’s too easy. It’s really hard,” Parsons said when asked to compare the Cowboys’ rival passers. “Never touched Daniel Jones; I think he got hurt our game, and he didn’t even play at all after that. And then [Carson] Wentz, I never played him. We touched [Jalen] Hurts a little bit, but I had COVID the last game. These guys are really new to me, to be honest.”

Still, the uber-confident Parsons isn’t worried about matching anyone else’s expectations of him based off what he put on the field last year.

“I just take the blessings that God gave me. I don’t feel like I need to reach anyone’s expectations but my own. If I can live with it, I can deal with it. I’m gonna just go out there and play my game. I don’t wanna go out there and chase no one’s story. I just gotta do my thing, and that’s what got me here, and that’s what I’m gonna keep doing.”

He says he doesn’t want to chase anyone’s story, but he wouldn’t mind grabbing some of that interception spotlight from teammate Trevon Diggs.

“I told Tre I might lead the team in picks this year,” Parsons joked. “We don’t got no money on it, but I’ve been really practicing my hands this year to get my hands on a couple picks this year.”

All that, of course, while he’s working to get his hands on a record number of quarterbacks.

Technically speaking, though, 23 sacks would only give Parsons a share of the true all-time single-season mark. Sacks didn’t become an official NFL stat until 1982. Anything that happened before that is up for debate and a certain amount of interpretation of archival film and old box scores.

According to some sources, like the Pro Football Reference Library, Al Baker of the Detroit Lions tallied 23 sacks in 1978. And he did it as a rookie, giving him two all-time records in one fell swoop.

The Cowboys, unsurprisingly, keep track of their own team records. In-house data maintains that Harvey Martin recorded 23 sacks a year prior, in 1977. (Pro Football Reference disagrees and credits the big defensive end with just 20, which is still absurdly impressive for a 14-game season.)

Those marks are unofficial, but a noted football history buff like Parsons may want to aim for 23.5 sacks this season just to be on the safe side and eliminate all confusion.

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‘Race to the quarterback’: Cowboys’ Micah Parsons accepts sack challenge from Lawrence

The reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year welcomes his teammate’s vow to reclaim the team’s sack crown, saying it will only push him harder. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence put the NFL’s quarterbacks- and a Cowboys teammate- on notice last week. He announced during the first round of OTAs that he wants to lead the team in sacks once again, reclaiming his throne from an upstart second-year linebacker.

“I let a rookie show me up last year,” Lawrence said with a grin. “Shout-out to my boy Micah.”

Micah Parsons finally got a chance to give a public reply at this week’s practice sessions at The Star.

“I’m sorry to tell him he’s never getting that back,” Parsons said Thursday, per Jori Epstein of USA Today.

Lawrence got just three sacks in 2021, missing 10 games due to injury. He has been the Cowboys leader in the category, though, in four of the past seven seasons.

Parsons notched 13 sacks in his first year of football since 2019 en route to the Defensive Rookie of the Year award. And he says he’s more than ready for a little intra-squad competition from Lawrence.

“It makes me want to compete,” Parsons continued, according to Epstein. “It’s healthy for the locker room. I want D-Law to step up and be who he is. I’m not taking that away from him. He can be a 10-sack guy, great. But if 10’s the number, I’m going for 20. Race to the quarterback.”

A 20-sack single season has happened just 13 times since the NFL started officially tracking the stat. Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt tied the league record last season with 22.5. In 2008, Dallas’s DeMarcus Ware recorded 20 sacks, a mark that still stands as the franchise record.

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‘Let everybody know that I’m coming’: New-look DeMarcus Lawrence wants to lead Cowboys in sacks again

The veteran pass rusher is sporting a new haircut to go with his new goal of leading the Cowboys in sacks for the fifth time in nine years. | From @ToddBrock24f7

New look, new goal.

DeMarcus Lawrence is sporting a more closely-cropped hairstyle than Cowboys fans had gotten used to seeing. Gone are the defensive end’s long dreadlocks… and with them, he says, went a willingness to not be the team’s reigning sackmaster.

“Become the sack leader again,” the eight-year veteran told reporters this week when asked about his mentality heading into the season. “I let a rookie show me up last year- shout-out to my boy Micah [Parsons].”

After missing 10 games due to injury, Lawrence logged three sacks in 2021, good for just fifth place on a surprisingly-resurgent defense under coordinator Dan Quinn. Matching or beating the 13 sacks registered by Parsons might be a tall order, but the Boise State product sounds eager to get himself back at the top of the pack when it comes to putting opposing quarterbacks on the ground.

From 2017 to 2020, Lawrence ended each season in either first or second place on the team in sacks. Three of those years, he led the Cowboys. And in two of them, he notched a double-digit total. (He also led the team in 2015.)

Now with a full year of Quinn’s system under the defense’s collective belt, Lawrence believes the unit can be even better.

“Being able to have a defense that you’re familiar with,” Lawrence explained, “it makes us, the bond more connected. For us to come in here, understand each other’s job and position, it makes our job a little easier so we’re not starting at the bottom again. We’re continuing to try to grow.”

But the former second-round draft pick decided his personal growth included lopping off his signature locks up top.

“Yeah, I had my fun with my dreads. I started growing them when I entered the NFL, and they grew so fast on me, they got heavy,” he said. “I turned 30 this year, so I’m like, ‘It’s time for me to make a grown-man change.’ And I chopped them off.”

But a new ‘do wasn’t the only offseason change Lawrence made. He restructured his contract with the Cowboys in March, spreading the $40 million owed to him across three years, all now fully guaranteed.

Some of that financial shuffling was with an eye toward retaining fellow defensive end Randy Gregory. That deal fell through, perhaps putting more pressure on Lawrence to put up big numbers.

He’ll have help, but much of it will come from new faces; Dante Fowler was signed in free agency just days after Lawrence’s new deal was announced, Sam Williams was drafted out of Ole Miss in the second round, and Chauncey Golston is just a second-year man. Dorance Armstrong, Carlos Watkins, and Tarell Basham all bring solid experience if not eye-popping stats.

Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, then, Lawrence amped up his winter and spring conditioning regimen to prep for his ninth season as the leader of the Dallas defensive line.

“I feel like I’m in better shape,” he added. “I feel like this offseason has been one of the most serious ones for me, just all about really just being healthy and taking care of the body and doing rigorous trainings and stuff and different workouts.”

New workouts. A rejuvenated body. A fresh cut.

Micah Parsons may be the Cowboys’ Simba, the young lion king-in-waiting.

But Mufasa isn’t going anywhere just yet.

“Restate my dominance,” said Lawrence of his plan for 2022. “Let everybody know that I’m coming, how I feel, and the type of respect I’m going to demand when I step on that field.”

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