41 years ago, when sack records were afterthoughts, the Jets' Mark Gastineau broke the NFL record

When Myles Garrett records his next sack, you’ll hear about it. If you are a sports fan, you’ll probably know in a matter of moments.

A push notification will come through on your phone. The news will flash along the bottom of the screen of whatever game you are watching. They’ll probably break away from that broadcast at some point, too, to show the play in which the Browns defensive end tackles a quarterback and ties the NFL’s single-season sack record of 22.5 held by Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt.

And when he becomes the third person in the last 41 seasons to break or tie a record in the most glamorous stat in defensive football? The highlight immediately will go viral.

It’ll be a very different situation compared with what happened when the Jets’ Mark Gastineau finished the 1984 campaign with 22 sacks, setting a record that held up until Strahan broke it in 2001.

The reaction to Gastineau’s accomplishment? Crickets.

Hardly anyone seemed to notice that his two sacks against Tampa Bay’s Steve DeBerg in the final game of the season on Dec. 16, 1984 — exactly 41 years ago on Tuesday — even though he set a benchmark that would last a generation. Instead, all of the attention that day was focused on the pursuit of a different record, one that wasn’t even reached.

The Buccaneers won that game, 41-21, but spent most of the day hellbent on making sure running back James Wilder had a chance to break the single-season record for total yardage.

To do it, they employed some unorthodox and unsportsmanlike tactics that included attempting onside kicks when up by as many as 27 points and instructing their defense to allow Jets running back Johnny Hector to score a late touchdown, all in order to get the ball back as many times as possible.

Wilder wound up rushing for 103 yards and added another 60 in receiving to give him 2,229 yards from scrimmage on the year, but it still wound up being 15 yards shy of the record Eric Dickerson had set two days earlier in the Rams’ season finale. Dickerson’s 2,244 yards had broken the previous mark set by O.J. Simpson at 2,243 in 1975.

The Jets, of course, caught on to what was happening. So when the Bucs got the ball back with less than a minute remaining, all 11 defenders were focused on Wilder.

With the defense lining up in what essentially was a goal-line formation but in the middle of the field, Wilder got the ball on three straight carries. He gained 2 on the first touch and was tackled for a loss of 2 by Ron Faurot on the next one. With 11 seconds remaining, Wilder took one last handoff. He was tackled for no gain . . . by Gastineau.

Gastineau already had broken the single-season sack record with his two takedowns, yet it was completely overshadowed. In Newsday’s coverage of the game, it received only the briefest of mentions at the bottom of the story, an afterthought sentence set off by ellipses. The New York Times didn’t mention it at all.

The Jets were so angered by what had happened that even they were largely oblivious to Gastineau’s record. Several players and assistant coaches confronted Bucs coach John McKay during and after the game. Jets coach Joe Walton called McKay’s decisions “uncalled for” and “a total embarrassment.”

There were other reasons for not paying attention to Gastineau’s sack record. Sacks had become an official NFL stat only two years earlier — and the record Gastineau broke was his own, having recorded a league-leading 19 of them in 1983.

Of course, there were sacks before they were recognized by the record books and they were tallied unofficially. In 1984, while Gastineau had 22, there were plenty of folks who did not recognize it as the real standard. Al Baker of the Lions was credited with 23 in 1978. Deacon Jones had 22 in 1964.

Also, sack totals were not as glorious and celebrated as they are now (although Gastineau’s dynamic dances certainly helped popularize them). Even with his 22 sacks that season, Gastineau finished third in the voting for Defensive Player of the Year — behind winner Kenny Easley of Seattle with his 10 interceptions and Lawrence Taylor of the Giants, who had 11.5 sacks.

And because 1984 was the third straight season that a sack record had been set, well, there was no reason to think someone wouldn’t come along in 1985 and break it.

Of course, no one did. A few came close — Taylor had 20.5 in 1986 and Reggie White had 21 in 1987 — but after Derrick Thomas had 20 in 1990, no other NFL player got out of the teens for a decade.

By the time Strahan came along in 2001, the stat was firmly embedded in football culture and so, finally, was the record. So when Strahan was credited with No. 22.5, a sack of Brett Favre in the final game of the regular season on Jan. 6, 2002, the accomplishment was met with appropriate hoopla.

Gastineau himself was on hand to celebrate (even though the legitimacy of the play itself — Favre appeared to give himself up — is still debated and ferociously contested by Gastineau).

It definitely got more than the passing reference Gastineau’s record received. And when Watt tied the record in 2021, that was trumpeted as well.

Now Garrett stands at 21.5 sacks after recording 1.5 on Sunday. He has three games left to set a record and his chances are fairly good. The only drama seems to be whether he will do so inside 16 games, which was the length of the season Strahan played, or need a 17th, as Watt did.

Before he passes Strahan and Watt, though, Garrett still has to pass Gastineau. That 22-sack season he had has aged better than just about anything else that was around in 1984. If anything, it has become a more recognized feat and a more appreciated accomplishment than it was the day it was reached.

After the game in which Gastineau hit 22 sacks in 1984, in which the Jets’ season ended with a 7-9 record and no playoff berth, Walton said the Bucs and their shenanigans had “set football back 20 years.”

No one realized it at the time, but Gastineau and the Jets were pushing defensive football forward by twice that length on the very same day.