A decade of sacks: Where the Denver Broncos ranked 2016-2025

Over the last 10 seasons, there has been plenty of pass rush data for the performance of every player in the NFL. The question I wanted an answer to in looking at this data was simple: Which team has the most sacks over the last decade?

The answer to that question is the Pittsburgh Steelers with 469.5 sacks, or 47 per season. The Denver Broncos were second with 43.6 sacks per season over the last decade.

However, if you just look at the last five seasons, the Broncos have the most in the NFL with 246 sacks (49.2 per season). The Steelers fall to second with 229 sacks.

The last 5 years have proven the Denver Broncos are the best pass rushing team in the NFL

Franchise legend Von Miller is currently 9th on the sacks leaderboard over the last decade, but he has not had many over the last five seasons. Other former Broncos on the list are Shaquil Barrett at 39th and Bradley Chubb at 45th, but they missed out on the top 20 cut.

Sadly, too many of those Khalil Mack (13), Chris Jones (only 8), and Maxx Crosby (16.5) sacks came against the Broncos. Admittedly, five of Mack's came in one game. Mack's best career game was against the Raiders (six sacks) in 2023, but his second-best game featured five sacks. That game, though, was in the 2015 season - December 13th 2015 - which is outside of the timespan for this study.

The starting tackles for the Broncos in that game were Ryan Harris and Michael Schofield. I think almost all of those five sacks of those sacks were when facing Schofield.

Miller built the Bronco pass rush, but Derek Wolfe occupying blockers helped him get plenty of those sacks in 2016 through 2019. Von had 13.5, 10, 14.5, and 8.0 sacks in those four seasons. 2019 was Wolfe's final season with the Broncos. He played for the Ravens in 2020 and was out of the league in 2021. Wolfe had a total of 16 sacks during those four seasons, but he had 96 total pressures, with a high of 32 in 2016. During those same four seasons, Miller had 46 sacks and 249 pressures.

There are 14 instances of a Bronco having eight or more sacks over the last decade. Von Miller's 14.5 in 2018 were the most. Miller owns four of them, while Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper both own three. The other four seasons are from guys who only show up once on this particular list. Although Chubb had 7.5 sacks in 2020 for the Broncos, and the recently departed John Franklin-Myers had 7.0 in 2024 and 7.5 in 2025. Miller's 18.5 sacks remain the best individual sack season in Broncos franchise history. He did this as a second-year player in 2012.

Miller's 2017 is made all the more impressive by the fact that the entire team had 33 sacks (there is an error in my plot below). Miller had 30% of the team's sacks that season. For comparison, Bonitto's 14.0 sacks in 2025 were only 21% of the team's total. Miller's 14.5 sacks in 2018 represented 34% of the team's total. Myles Garrett's 23 sacks last season were 43% of the Browns' sacks. Michael Strahan's 22.5 sacks in 2001 were a crazy 49% of the team's total.

The highest sack percentage (of the team total) for a Bronco in an individual season was Elvis Dumervil's 2009 season. He had 17 sacks, and the team had 39, so he had 44%. The 2024 and 2025 Broncos set franchise records in sacks with 63 and 68. Previously, the team high had been 57 in 1984.

Admittedly, that was done in 16 games instead of 17, but 57 in 16 games is 3.6 per game. 63 in 17 games is 3.7 per game. So even on a per-game basis, the 2024 team was better than the 1984 team. Rulon Jones led that 1984 team in sacks with 11. Barney Chavous had 7.5, Karl Mecklenburg had 7 and Tom Jackson had 6.

Sacks are not the only way to measure pass rush success, either. We'll continue looking at the Broncos' pressure rate over the last handful of years. Pressure data only goes back to 2018 at Pro-football-reference.com, but it goes back to 2016 at SIS. And those numbers only further prove that the Broncos' pass rush is consistently elite.

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