Cleveland Browns have new all-time sack leader

Pro Football Reference has officially completed its research for sack stats since 1960 and Bill Glass now sits atop the Cleveland Browns record book

If you were to do a quick Google search for the all-time sack leader in Cleveland Browns history, you would see the name Clay Matthews, Jr. pop up. The should-be Hall of Famer was credited with 62 sacks during his time in Cleveland which didn’t include the first four years of his career since sacks weren’t officially a stat until 1982.

But now, Pro Football Reference has remedied this as they officially completed their research for sack stats and have been able to post every player’s sack statistics since 1960. Now Matthews is credited with 75 for his career, but that’s no longer good enough for the top spot.

Instead, that position belongs to Bill Glass who played with the Browns from 1962 through 1968 and now sits atop Cleveland’s leaderboard on PFR with 77 sacks in his career.

The best individual season also belongs to Glass now, who had 16.5 in 1965. He also had 15.5 in his first season with the Browns. He joined the team in 1962 in the same trade with the Lions that brought quarterbacks Jim Ninowski and running back Howard “Hopalong” Cassady to Cleveland.

The person on the current team most affected by this change is Myles Garrett. Currently, Garrett has 42.5 sacks and was already in striking distance of the all-time team record. Now, it may take him a few more years to pass — but barring anything crazy, that will still happen.

What’s more questionable is the 16.5 sacks in a season. Before that, the record for a single season was 14 by Reggie Camp in 1984. Garrett just missed that with 13.5 as his personal best in 2018. He was sure to top that one day but 16.5 is an even tougher mark to reach.

For now though, all the sack titles belong to Bill Glass thanks to the work by Pro Football Reference, and they deserve credit for doing something that should have been done long ago.