NFL unofficial sack record, explained: Why Al Baker is the technical record holder over Michael Strahan

For as long as the NFL has been around, it has only recently figured out how to gauge a pass rusher’s impact on limiting passing success.

The sack has been regaled for more than four decades, viewed as the best way to quantify a defender’s ability to strike fear in the quarterback. It is the currency by which EDGE rushers are paid; the more sacks one records, the more zeroes they’ll get in their bank accounts.

And yet, the tally is far from infallible. The league’s official sack totals only take into account sacks recorded after the 1981 season. That means some of the league’s earliest pass rushers are unable to bask in the glory of the sack.

There’s no easy way to fix the oversight. But some researchers have tried, using every tool available — from newspaper clippings to grainy footage — to breathe life into what once seemed the Dark Ages for some of the sport’s finest tradesmen.

With that, here’s what you need to know about the unofficial sack record.

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What is the NFL unofficial sack record?

As far as the official NFL record book is concerned, Bruce Smith is the all-time leader in sacks, while the title of greatest single-season sack specialist belongs to Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt. However, the "official" record only refers to sack totals recorded after the 1981 season, denying the very real fear that icons like Deacon Jones, Jack Youngblood and Alan Page struck in opposition quarterbacks throughout their glistening careers.

How does one move forward without properly analyzing the past? While sacks weren't made official until the 1982 season, the information swept up in the sack — loss of yardage, game state and more — was available to look at through the margins. Unofficial sacks attempt to provide a quantifiable account of who were the league's best pass rushers from 1960-1981 — a period that is effectively barren for pass rushers as far as the official NFL record book is concerned. 

While not considered part of the NFL's official record, the information is tracked on Pro Football Reference, one of football enthusiasts' most cherished statistical tools.

Smith still wins out if unofficial sacks are taken to account over the course of a career. But there's a new sack specialist who takes the prize on the single-season marks when unofficial sacks are considered: former Lions star Al Baker, who recorded of them in his maiden season in 1978.

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Unofficial sack leaders

Here's a look at the unofficial 20 greatest sack artists based on both official and unofficial sack marks.

Who is Al Baker?

Baker enjoyed a 13-year career, playing for the Cardinals, Browns, Vikings and, most famously, the Lions. Nicknamed Bubba, he enjoyed his greatest success in the Motor City, capturing Defensive Rookie of the Year and first-team All-Pro honors in 1978 and earning three straight Pro Bowl nods to start his career. Sacks were not made an official stat until Baker’s fifth season. However, his unofficial sack totals are the stuff of myth.

Baker twice led the league in sacks. His rookie season saw him bring down 23 quarterbacks behind the line of scrimmage, an NFL record. Pro Football Reference dubbed Baker the single-season sack king in 2021, an announcement that brought tears from the then-65-year-old.

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"You know somebody tells you you're a sack leader and what do you do, you start crying," Baker told the Around the NFL podcast in 2021. "And I guess it's because none of us really sat around like some players and, 'We want this and we want that.' We hadn't thought about it for at least, for at least, I'm not kidding you, 20 years.

"The conversations that I would have was when people would come up to me and they would say, they'd talk to me about Michael Strahan's 22nd and a half sack. That was a problem for me, the way that went down. That was a problem."

"The conversations that I would have was when people would come up to me and they would say, they'd talk to me about Michael Strahan's 22nd and a half sack. That was a problem for me, the way that went down. That was a problem," said Baker, who's been a success in his post-playing days as a restaurant owner in Ohio. "Cause Michael had a great year. To see that, it had nothing to do with my 23, it just had to do with, well, why does he need to do that? Now it's tainted, in my opinion, and that bothered me."

All told, Baker is credited with 75.5 unofficial sacks and 65.5 official sacks. His combined figure of 131.0 sacks place him No. 22 on the all-time sack list, better than Hall of Famers Derrick Thomas, Dwight Freeney and Randy White.

How were sacks tracked before they became an official NFL statistic?

While sacks were not considered an official NFL stat, league officials did mark when quarterbacks were taken down while attempting a pass behind the line of scrimmage. However, the information was strictly used to keep tabs on loss yardage — not to recognize a defensive player's role in contributing to the mayhem.

John Turney, a member of the Pro Football Researchers Association, pored over all the available in-game information he could find regarding unofficial sacks, from play-by-play accounts to game tape via NFL Films. His research helped mend the gap between the heydays of sack specialists of the past and those deemed legitimate in the league's official record book. He also helped answer a question former Pro Football Hall of Famer Deacon Jones leveled at the New York Times in 2006.

"Since when does 'all-time' begin in 1982?"

When did sacks become an official NFL statistic?

Sacks were introduced into the NFL's record book in 1982. The term was already considered a part of the NFL lexicon by then — Deacon Jones is widely considered the the first person to utter the famous title, although he wasn't able to benefit from its official use.

"Sacking the quarterback is just like you devastate a city or you cream a multitude of people," Jones once said. "Like you put all the offensive players in one bag and I just take a baseball bat and beat on the bag."

Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy suggested that Jones might have bit the phrase from former Commanders coach George Allen, who reportedly invoked placing Cowboys QB Craig Morton into a sack ahead of a rivalry matchup.

“George was talking the night before in the team meeting about playing the Dallas Cowboys and their quarterback, Craig Morton," Levy told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle's Leo Roth in 2013. "The term [sack] had never been used. It was always, ‘Tackle the QB for a loss.’ But the night before the game, George goes, ‘Before we play those Dallas Cowboys, we’re going to take that Morton salt and pour him into a sack.’ That was the inspiration for it.’’

From 1960-1981, the NFL only tracked data related to the amount of yardage a quarterback lost when they were dumped behind the line of scrimmage. Credit hadn't been granted to defensive players for their contribution in upending hurler. It's unclear what prompted the league to recognize pass rushers for their impact in sending QBs to the earth. But the league's decis

Unofficial single-season sack leaders

Sacks weren't recorded as an official stat until 1982, but some sites have gone back and accounted for sacks dating back as early as 1960. Any sack total from before 1982 is unofficial.