In an annual survey of National Football League executives, coaches and scouts conducted by ESPN, Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett has once again beaten out Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt for the league’s top edge rusher.
Garrett, who also won NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors for the 2023 season, was voted in first place in these rankings for the second consecutive season. Seventy percent of the first place votes went for Garrett.
Garrett’s dominance comes despite a drop in productivity according to most traditional stats. Garrett recored 14 sacks, 17 tackles for loss, 42 tackles, 30 quarterback hits, four forced fumbles and three passes defended in 2023. Those are down from 16 sacks, 18 TFLs, 60 tackles, 26 quarterback hits, two forced fumbles sand four passes defended in 2022.
One of the big differences is that the rest of the league has been working hard to minimize Garrett’s impact. He was double-teamed 29% of the time last season, more than all but one other player, and nearly twice as much as many.
“If you don’t double team him, he’s going to f—ing kill you,” one NFL coordinator told ESPN.
The other area where Garrett has surged has been the growing acceptance around the league of pass-rush win rate as a meaningful statistic. Tracked separately by outlets such as ESPN and Pro Football Focus, the metric theoretically peels the curtain behind sack totals in an attempt to show which players are more consistently making an impact.
PFF and ESPN both had Garrett among the league’s leaders in pass-rush win rate in 2023, which seemingly has gone a long way to his acceptance at the best pass rusher in the NFL.
Because it certainly isn’t due to his traditional stats. Watt lapped him at every turn in 2023, with 19 sacks, 19 tackles for loss, 68 tackles, 36 quarterback hits, four forced fumbles, eight passes defended and an interception.
The divergence between new and more well-founded ways to look at the position has created quite a divide between those who believe Garrett is the league’s most dominant edge rusher and those that can’t understand how it isn’t the one with obviously better numbers.
“It’s not particularly close,” CBS Sports wrote while supporting Watt as the best earlier this offseason. Unsurprisingly, PFF picked Garrett in its own offseason analysis.
Watt finished second in the survey, followed by Micah Parson of the Dallas Cowboys, Nick Bosa of the San Francisco 49ers and Maxx Crosby of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Alex Highsmith, the Steelers’ other outside linebacker, received votes but finished outside the top 15.
