Myles Garrett makes bold prediction about breaking NFL sack record
Myles Garrett has six regular season games remaining to get five more sacks and break the NFL record jointly held by Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt.
While Garrett is focused on helping the 3-8 Cleveland Browns win football games, it’s impossible to ignore that he’s on the doorstep of football history.
Garrett’s 18 sacks through the first 12 games of the season already set a personal record for the talented pass rusher. However, he understands that he’s destined for more.
“I don’t even think about it as a want. I just think about it as something I’m gonna knock down,” Garrett said on Friday. “It’s already been written in my mind that it’s going, it’s just how far I’m gonna take it.”
Sacks are known to come in bunches and that has certainly been the case for Garrett, who has 13 sacks over his last five games. There is almost no debating that the reigning Defensive Player of the Year is playing the best football of his career right now.
Garrett enters Week 13 as a massive -1000 favorite to win NFL Defensive Player of the Year again. He took the award home last season ahead of a very public trade request.
During Garrett’s trade request, he publicly questioned Cleveland’s plans to contend for championships. At 29 years old, Garrett has the personal accolades and now he wants to compete to win a Super Bowl.
This offseason, the Browns must prioritize quickly rebuilding their offense as their defense, headlined by Garrett, is already championship material. As long as Garrett can replicate a season close to this one in 2026, the Browns should be better suited to make the NFL Playoffs as long as they fix their offense.
Earlier this week, Garrett was named the NFL Defensive Player of the Week, tying Browns legend Bernie Kosar for the most of that award in franchise history with five. Garrett sacked Raiders quarterback Geno Smith three times and forced two fumbles in Las Vegas during Cleveland’s much-needed victory.
Despite Garrett’s dominance all season long, Week 12 insultingly marked the first time in 2025 that he received the award.
“They could hand it to him every week as far as I’m concerned,” Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski told reporters once it was announced that Garrett had finally won the weekly honors.
While Garrett probably does deserve the NFL Defensive Player of the Week each and every week as his head coach suggested, his eyes are on a bigger prize – NFL history.
Denver HC Sean Payton Explains Why Broncos Extended C Luke Wattenberg
To some outsiders, it came as a bit of an eyebrow-raiser when the Denver Broncos on Tuesday handed starting center Luke Wattenberg a four-year contract extension worth $48 million, including $27 million guaranteed.
To Broncos head coach Sean Payton, it seemed like a no-brainer move, preventing Wattenberg from reaching the unrestricted free-agent market next year.
“[It’s] good and I think it’s a credit to Luke,” Payton told reporters Wednesday. ”We lost a really good center in free agency a couple years ago. Again, there is a vision. [He’s] a good, young player and it’s important to keep those guys in your building. I’ve been in the position where you are trying to draft a center and it’s one of those unique positions. If you say in the draft, ‘We’re going to draft a center that we feel like can start Year 1,’ that becomes difficult. We are excited for him and of course [K] Wil [Lutz]. All three of those guys.”
A 2022 fifth-round pick drafted by the previous regime, Wattenberg has been Denver’s primary pivot man under Payton dating back to the beginning of last season, appearing in 24 games over that span while succeeding former starter Lloyd Cushenberry, who defected to Tennessee in 2024.
The 6-foot-5, 300-pound blocker is currently grading out asPro Football Focus' No. 20 C among 38 qualifiers, spearheading a Broncos line that’s allowed the fewest sacks in the league (13) entering Week 13.
“His football I.Q. is really sharp. He’s athletic. He does a good job in to the second level. He’s really improved in his protections,” Payton said of Wattenberg. ”All of it, you just see the curve still going upwards. Those are a few things.”
With the ink dry on his deal, the Broncos now have the entirety of their OL — left tackle Garett Bolles, left guard Ben Powers, right guard Quinn Meinerz, right tackle Mike McGlinchey, and Wattenberg — locked down for the foreseeable future.
Payton Talks Roach Pact
In addition to Wattenberg, the Broncos during their recent bye week also struck agreements with kicker Wil Lutz on a three-year contract extension and defensive lineman Malcolm Roach on a three-year arrangement.
A longtime Payton favorite — they spent time together with the Saints — Roach is now under team control through the 2028 season.
“When we left for the Bye, [General Manager] Geroge [Paton] and I talked. There were a handful of opportunities to at least visit with these guys. Speaking on [DT] Malcolm [Roach], his versatility and there are a lot of things—his flexibility position-wise and all the other things he brings to the team, it was a good fit,” Payton said.
