One Bengal Projected to Post Top-50 NFL Sack Total Across 2026 NFL Season

The Bengals have a pretty new set of pass rushers ready to attack quarterbacks this fall, and ESPN's Seth Walder projected a few to have solid sack totals.

Boye Mafe was the only Bengal projected to post a top-50 sack total this coming season. He checked in at No. 40 with six sacks.

New Bengals mauler Dexter Lawrence landed just outside the top 50 after posting a career-low sack total last fall. He is projected to have five sacks this season against a juicy set of immobile quarterbacks. Lawrence posted just a half sack last campaign.

"After a down 2025 season, Lawrence was traded to the Bengals from the Giants for the 10th overall pick," Walder wrote. "What kind of player will the Bengals get -- the Lawrence of a few years ago or who he was last season? The projections are splitting the difference.

"Lawrence's sacks fell off last season despite him playing less nose tackle than the previous couple of years. But the projections won't totally quit him because of what he has done in the past. Plus, the Bengals face the easiest schedule in the league this season overall (which helps their predicted win total) and the easiest schedule of quarterbacks in terms of past sack rate."

Walder explained his methodology in the post.

"This is the sixth consecutive year we've run our sack forecast for veteran pass rushers based on a statistical model that uses information about a player's past performance and current circumstances to project how many sacks he will record in the upcoming season."

The model's inputs include:

Sack totals and rates for each of the past two seasons
Projected snaps, via ESPN's Mike Clay
Pass rush win rate, which uses data from NFL Next Gen Stats
Past sack rates for the quarterbacks on each player's schedule
Team win totals from the betting market
Where a player aligns
Age
Only defensive linemen and edge rushers are included, and rookies are excluded.

Myles Murphy can put this on his bulletin board as motivation to be a much more impactful player on quarterbacks this season.

He posted a career-high 5.5 sacks this past season and could easily top that again with more snaps in a larger role this year. All in all, the sack attack will be a group effort from the whole front seven.

Plenty of names are entering their second year in Al Golden's system trying to up their t-22nd NFL team sack total from last season (35 sacks).

Check out the full projections here.

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