Why a 20-Sack Season for Myles Garrett With the Rams May Be Unlikely

Arguably the biggest move of the NFL offseason has been the Los Angeles Rams trading for edge rusher Myles Garrett. The stats have always been there for Garrett, but much like Matthew Stafford when he left the Detroit Lions in 2021, this is his chance to prove it with a good team in position to win a Super Bowl.

One of the biggest questions heading into the season is what kind of effect Garrett will have with the Rams. Garrett broke the NFL sack record last season and is a two-time Defensive Player of the Year. Adding him to an already talented Rams defense should theoretically only open up more opportunities for him.

Is 20 Sacks a Realistic Expectation for Myles Garrett?

ESPN’s Benjamin Solak recently wrote 10 predictions for the 2026 NFL season. Solak predicted that Garrett will hit 20 sacks with the Rams this season.

“Unless the Rams decide to manage Garrett's pitch count for a postseason run, he should have more ripe opportunities for sacks than ever before,” said Solak. “I can't really find a good reason to say Garrett's going to be worse in 2026 besides regression. And if his sack rate regresses but his total opportunities for sacks increase, he should be in range of repeating a 20-sack year.”

Nobody would be surprised if Garrett hit 20 sacks for a second consecutive year in his first season with the Rams. However, when it comes to these types of moves, it’s easy to get ‘over the top’ with predictions.

As Solak mentioned himself, since sacks became a stat in 1982, only one player has tallied multiple 20-plus-sack seasons. That was J.J. Watt in 2012 and 2014. Watt was 23 and 25 years old in those seasons. Garrett is in his age 31 season. Additionally, if we include Pro Football Reference’s retroactive sack numbers, Deacon Jones is the only player to hit 20 sacks in consecutive seasons.

The Rams Have More Pass-Rush Options

Good and great players tend to overperform on bad teams because they are often the only players capable of making those plays. Allen Robinson was force-fed with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Chicago Bears and then didn’t produce with the Rams in 2022. Steven Jackson had eight consecutive 1,000-yard seasons with the Rams and then ended up as a free agent bust with the Atlanta Falcons. The same was true for Kenny Golladay when he left the Detroit Lions for the New York Giants.

This isn’t to say that Garrett won’t produce or be as productive with the Rams. It wouldn’t be surprising if Garrett hit 20 sacks, but a regression back to his career average of 12-16 sacks seems more likely.

Last season when Garrett had 23 sacks, the next closest player on the Browns had 6.5. Aaron Donald had 20.5 sacks in 2018 with the Rams, but the next closest player in sacks was Ndamukong Suh with 4.5. The most productive player on the edge was Samson Ebukam who had three sacks.

At the end of the day, there are only so many sacks on a defense to go around. Part of Garrett joining the Rams is that, while he will be counted on in the big moments, he also doesn’t have to do everything himself.

Garrett is joining an edge rusher group that included Byron Young. Young had 12 sacks last season and 15.5 through his first two years in the NFL. Kobie Turner has had seven or more sacks in each of his first three seasons and Braden Fiske has shown he can be productive as a pass rusher.

Garrett’s Value Goes Beyond Sack Totals

There are simply more sacks to go around on the Rams defense. The Browns had 53 sacks last season and 23 of those came from Garrett. With the talent on the Rams’ defense, it’s unlikely that he accounts for 43 percent of the team’s sacks.

Garrett will be replacing Jared Verse who had 7.5 sacks on a Rams defense that had 47 sacks last season. If Garrett capitalizes on more opportunities than Verse did, it would be fair to expect him to more or less double that number. Again, somewhere in the 12-16 sack range seems realistic. That would still be a very good, productive season from Garrett.

Additionally, Garrett's presence will open up favorable opportunities for players like Young and Turner that they wouldn't have had otherwise. They should see more one-on-one matchups than previous years as teams focus on Garrett.

When the Rams won the Super Bowl in 2021, they gave Donald more help with players such as Leonard Floyd and Von Miller. Donald didn’t need to do everything in 2021 like he did in 2018. Floyd had 9.5 sacks in 2021 while Miller was dominant in the playoffs. Donald was still a First-Team All-Pro with 12.5 sacks and finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

To be clear, this isn’t saying that Garrett was a great player that took advantage of production on a bad team. However, the Rams have a deeper pass-rush rotation and more players capable of generating sacks, making a 20-sack season for Garrett less likely. That doesn’t mean that he can’t or won’t hit that number. It’s only to say that Garrett will have more help on this Rams defense than he did in Cleveland.

Add us as a preferred source on Google