Sack Attack: New Cowboys All-Team Leader?
Dallas Cowboys up six. Less than two minutes remaining. Opponent driving inside the 30. Fourth-and-10.
Which player - regardless of era - do you want rushing the quarterback?
The statistics say DeMarcus Ware. But - after an exhaustive research-and-audit process by the stats geeks at Pro Football Reference - his gap was almost gobbled up by the ghosts of Cowboys past. Somehow sacks were not an official NFL stat until 1982. Thanks to PFR, we now have inclusive numbers may not be official, but are readily available and widely accepted.
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Bottom line: While Ware maintains his lead as Dallas' all-time sack leader with 117, numbers 2-7 on the list today are adorned with new names unearthed from the 1960s and 1970s. Not on the list a week ago, Harvey Martin is now second with 114 sacks. He's followed by co-Super Bowl XII MVP Randy White with 111, Ed "Too Tall" Jones, George Andre, Jethro Pugh Bob Lilly and Jim Jeffcoat who, until this milestone adjustment, was No. 2.
The Cowboys' active leader - DeMarcus Lawrence with 45.5 - has been shoved out of the Top 10.
Sacks - a term invented by Los Angeles Rams' Hall of Famer Deacon Jones in the 1970s - are a fickle lot. Were they easier to record back in the day, given that head slaps were legal and any use of hands by offensive linemen was illegal? Or are they easier to produce in today's NFL, where quarterbacks drop back to pass approximately 75 percent of the time?
Regardless, the NFL's new-and-improved list underwent some major reconstructive sack surgery. Gone is Michael Strahan's single-season record of 22.4 in 2001, now eclipsed by Al "Bubba" Baker's 23 in 1978. Jones, just a rumor flimsily supported by black-and-white, reel-to-reel film before, is now No. 3 all-time, behind unchanged No. 1 and No. 2, Bruce Smith and Reggie White.
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While Ware collected his sacks playing multiple positions on some horrendous units, PFR's sack exchange brings more into focus the dominance of Dallas' 1970s "Doomsday Defense."
Four of the top six pass-rushers in Cowboys' history - Martin, White, Pugh and Jones - started Super Bowl XII.
