Cleveland Browns pass rusher Myles Garrett is in rare territory.
His 20 sacks through 13 games puts him just 2½ shy of the single-season NFL record set by Michael Strahan in 2001 and matched by T.J. Watt in 2021. Garrett has four games to tie or surpass the record. (Unofficially, the Detroit Lions’ Al “Bubba” Baker recorded 23 sacks in 1978, but sacks didn’t become an official statistic until 1982.)
Garrett has recorded a sack in each of the last seven games. Three times in that stretch he recorded three or more.
Garrett has a 16.7% pressure rate this season, per NFL Pro. Remarkably, that’s only the fourth-best mark of his career going back to his second season in 2018 (which is as far back as NFL Pro’s numbers go). His career-high pressure rate was 19.2% in 2019, when he totaled 10 sacks in 10 games before being suspended for the final six games.
Garrett has lined up on the right side of the defensive formation — against the left offensive tackle — on 82% of his snaps. So he’ll likely spend the majority of Sunday’s game at Soldier Field going against Chicago Bears left tackle Ozzy Trapilo. He will switch sides at times to mix it up, though, so right tackle Darnell Wright also should expect to see Garrett across from him.
“He’s just a complete player,” Bears coach Ben Johnson said. “When you look at the size and strength and speed, it’s just a unique package where he really has it all.”
Could Myles Garrett set the sack record Sunday?
Don’t put it past him.
Garrett has feasted on the Bears with 5½ sacks in three career games. That includes 4½ sacks during Justin Fields’ starting debut in 2021. The last time he faced the Bears in 2023, Garrett had no sacks but seven quarterback pressures.
Three sacks from Garrett on Sunday is definitely not out of the question. Just this season he has had games with three, four and five. A player doesn’t get to 20 sacks without those monster efforts.
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has been sacked just 20 times through 13 games — quite an improvement over last year’s 68 sacks in 17 games. Williams has faced a 32.1% pressure rate, per NFL Pro, which ranks 22nd-highest among 34 qualified quarterbacks.
So while it feels like Williams often is running for his life while playing Houdini, overall the Bears have given him relatively clean pockets compared with some of his peers. He has been sacked three times or more in only two games this season.
“I’m going to try and make sure that he doesn’t get the sack record on us and on me,” Williams said Wednesday.
Easier said than done. There’s at least a small possibility fans could see history Sunday at Soldier Field.
The only player to record multiple sacks against the Bears this season was Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman Javon Hargrave, who had two in Week 1.
Micah Parsons challenged the Bears more than the stat sheet indicates.
Parsons had no sacks and only one tackle Sunday in the Green Bay Packers’ 28-21 victory over the Bears, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Parsons recorded eight pressures in 30 pass-rush attempts for a 26.7% pressure rate. It was his seventh game this season with a pressure rate better than 20%. Green Bay used him all over the formation, including on the interior at defensive tackle.
The eight pressures were tied for the most the Bears have allowed by a single player this season. The Cincinnati Bengals’ Joseph Ossai also had eight in Week 9. The Lions’ Aidan Hutchinson recorded seven pressures in Week 2.
Caleb Williams’ accuracy issues continue.
Williams’ targets this season are averaging 3.8 yards of separation. That’s tied for the best in the league with the Denver Broncos’ Bo Nix. Williams has thrown into what Next Gen Stats describes as “tight windows” just 10.7% of the time, the lowest mark in the league.
That makes it all the more concerning that he’s completing 57.8% of his passes, ahead of only Minnesota’s J.J. McCarthy.
Next Gen Stats uses its models to estimate an expected completion percentage, given where the receiver and defenders are on the field. Williams is last in the NFL with a minus-8% completion percentage over expected.
“There’s certainly some (throws) that you can talk about each week where you feel like guys are open and we can certainly give them a ball on time and give them a chance to run after catch and all that,” Johnson said this week.
Can Williams set a Bears record?
Williams probably won’t reach 4,000 passing yards this season unless something unusual happens. That number has eluded Bears quarterbacks for more than 100 years. They remain the only franchise that has never had a 4,000-yard passer.
With 2,908 yards through 13 games, Williams needs to average 273 over the final four games to reach 4,000. He has topped 273 yards just three times this season.
The single-season franchise record, however, is slightly more attainable. Erik Kramer set the mark in 1995 with 3,838 yards. Williams needs to average 232.5 over the final four games to match that. Through 13 games, he’s averaging 223.7 yards.
Williams’ 3,541 passing yards last season ranks fifth in franchise history. On his current 2025 pace, he would finish with 3,803, which would rank third on the franchise list — with Jay Cutler’s best mark of 3,812 in 2014 (second in franchise history) within sight.