Miami Dolphins: Jason Taylor, Cameron Wake drop down all-time sack list

One of the most relied upon NFL statistical databases received a serious upgrade over the last weekend, as Pro Football Reference added twenty-two years worth of defensive sack listings to their all-time leaderboards. As a result, a few former Miami Dolphins players have slipped down the list.

The statistical update is a staggering one. Sacks became an official stat in 1982, and the leaderboards have been missing some of the most dominant forces that the NFL has ever seen. But now, names like Deacon Jones, Jack Youngblood, and Jim Marshall grace the “unofficial” leaderboard, and fans of the game can now properly appreciate the great ones that played in the pre-’80s NFL. There are some excellent tidbits to be taken out of the new data, including the dominance of the aforementioned Jones and sudden Hall of Fame cases for guys like Al Baker.

A few of our favorite Miami Dolphins legends have fallen down the sacks leaderboard, due to an update from Pro Football Reference.

For us Miami Dolphins fans, it also means a tumble down the leaderboard for some of our favorite players:

• Hall of Famer Jason Taylor, who racked up 139.5 sacks in his career, is still in 7th place all time on the official list. But the unofficial one has Taylor all the way down at number 11, displaced by Jones, Youngblood, and Alan Page.
• Trace Armstrong, who had the third-best single season sack total in Dolphins’ history (16.5), was in 25th place but was bumped all the way down to number 29
• Cameron Wake’s 100.5 career sacks was previously good enough for 32nd place, but he now finds himself as the 52nd name on the list.

Does this affect any of their legacies? Taylor is already a Hall of Famer and would have been one either way, but it is a bit of a bummer seeing his name drop out of the top 10. Armstrong and Wake have a solid 100+ total sacks, which is an achievement that is held only the top 35 pass rushers in league history (or top 55, depending on which list you’re now looking at). Their respective places in NFL history shouldn’t be defined by a single statistical update, but rather give us a new perspective of the dominance that came before them.

There are a lot of interesting things to take away from reading the new list from Pro Football Reference, who does a wonderful job with their database and should be applauded for their latest update.