The Denver Broncos have spent the last two seasons turning sack production into an art form, and the numbers now put them in rare company.
In 2025, Denver piled up 68 sacks, breaking the team record it had just set the year before with 63. Before that, the franchise mark sat at 58, set by the 1984 Broncos. The latest total doesn’t just sit atop the team’s record book - it ties for fifth-best in NFL history, alongside the 1985 Giants.
That kind of back-to-back output is what makes the Broncos’ run stand out. Over the last three seasons, Denver has collected 173 sacks, the 10th-best three-year total in league history.
Only the Bears from 1983 to 1985 have done better, with 198. The Broncos’ 131 sacks over the last two seasons also rank as the third-best two-season stretch in NFL history, trailing only the mid-80s Bears.
The 2025 defense was not only prolific in total sacks, it was relentless on a per-game basis. Denver averaged 4.00 sacks per game, which ranks 19th all time.
The all-time leader is the 1967 Raiders at 4.79 sacks per game, with 67 sacks in 14 regular-season games. The 1963 Patriots, still known then as the Boston Patriots, finished close behind with 66 in 14 games.
The next teams on that list are the mid-80s Bears, a unit that featured four Hall of Famers in the front seven: Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Steve McMichael, and Mike Singletary.
That historical backdrop matters because the Broncos are chasing numbers that only a few defenses have ever touched. To set the NFL record for sacks over a three-season span, Denver would need 71 in 2026.
That would require 4.17 sacks per game over a 17-game schedule, which would rank 11th-best in NFL history. The closest anyone has come this century was the 2022 Eagles, who finished with 70 sacks in 17 games, or 4.12 per game.
Joe Mahoney highlighted the Broncos’ place in the record book on August 24 and August 25, 2026, noting both the team’s three-season total and the recent rise in sack rate across the league. He also pointed out that the Broncos’ 2025 total tied the 1985 Giants and that their 131 sacks over two seasons rank behind only the mid-80s Bears.
The individual numbers were just as striking. Only seventeen players in the league reached double-digit sacks last season, and Nik Bonitto finished fifth with 14.0. The leaders were Myles Garrett with 23.5, Brian Burns with 16.5, Danielle Hunter with 15.0, and Aidan Hutchinson with 14.5.
Still, Denver’s pursuit of another historic total won’t be simple. The Broncos’ pressure came from the middle of the defense as much as anywhere else, and losing John Franklin-Myers could make the next climb harder.
Franklin-Myers and Zach Allen were both major drivers of the pass rush last season, with Allen generating pressure on 13.2 percent of his pass-rush snaps and Franklin-Myers on 13.1 percent. DJ Jones was next among the defensive linemen at 10.9 percent.
According to sisdatahub, with a minimum of 200 pass rushes, Allen ranked 26th in pressure rate in 2025 and Franklin-Myers 27th.
If Denver is going to keep chasing the record books in 2026, it may have to do it with a different cast. The names likely to shoulder more of that load include rookie Tyler Onyedim, veteran Enyi Uwazurike, and second-year defensive end Sai'vion Jones.
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