| Would somebody please call the Coast Guard? Or
maybe the State Police. Warren Sapp has gone missing. Well, maybe Sapp’s actual
whereabouts aren’t in doubt. But on Sundays, he certainly isn’t showing up on
the stat sheet nearly as favorably as expected.
Sapp was predicted to have a huge season in 2001. We here at Pro Football Weekly said
Sapp would lead the NFC in sacks. Half of the PFW staff said he would wind up the
NFL’s Defensive MVP.
I hate to admit it, but we were fooled. Maybe by some of Sapp’s deft
trash-talking. Or perhaps by the fact that he was surrounded by three other first-round
picks on the defensive line. Maybe we believed because he has averaged nearly 10 sacks a
season in his six-year NFL career, Sapp was simply entitled to quarterback takedowns.
After all, he did have a career-high 16.5 sacks last season.
But it’s not just about sacking the quarterback, now is it? Football is also about
tackling running backs and tight ends and wide receivers — mostly running backs in
Sapp’s case. The guy has averaged more than 55 tackles a season, and he had 76 in
2001.
Now, what has Sapp done this season? The answer is: not much. Through five games, Sapp
has one sack. One sack! He has just 10 tackles, seven of them solos! Not very impressive.
Before the season, Sapp was feeling brash. He said that it wasn’t right for the
single-season sack record to be held by a criminal like Mark Gastineau. Gastineau, who has
had his share of legal problems since leaving the game, set the record in 1984 with 22
sacks. Sapp stated that he intended to break that record this season. Even after a slow
start, he reiterated that he intended to take down the record.
My advice to Sapp now is to pretend he never said that. Claim he was misquoted or his
words were taken out of context. He needs some sort of excuse, because he’s on pace
for exactly 3.2 sacks this season — which is 18.8 sacks shy of the record. As for
tackles, Sapp is on pace for a whopping 32.
That’s not Defensive MVP material. Not by a long shot.
That’s why I would like to go on record and change PFW’s pick for the NFC
sack leader. I don’t know if I have the authority to do so, but I’m not asking
anyone. I’m just doing it.
With the benefit of seeing the first six games of the season, the new pick is Michael
Strahan of the Giants. This guy will be your 2001 Defensive MVP and sack leader. He is on
a tear of unparalleled proportions. Strahan has 10.5 sacks in the last four games and
currently is the NFL leader. Only one other player in NFL history (or since 1982, when the
league began keeping track of sacks) has netted at least 10.5 sacks in a four-game span
— Chicago’s Richard Dent, who had 11 in four games back in 1984.
If you want to see the sack record fall, it may be done in the city where it was set
— New York. Strahan is on pace for an astonishing 28 sacks. While I doubt that he can
keep up that pace, he will seriously challenge the record this season. |
