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Let's face it, July is kind of boring when it comes to football news (other than mass suspension days like yesterday). To try to shake off some of the boredom, I decided I would look for a random fact about the team to share with you each Friday. It really could be anything, from stats to jerseys to stadium. Whatever I happen to find and feel like sharing.
This week, I took a look at the team's all-time sacks list. Cameron Wake is second all-time for the Dolphins with 63 career sacks. Unless he rips off a 70 sack season, he is not going to catch Jason Taylor atop the list any time soon. It's when you turn to Olivier Vernon, sitting on the other side of the defensive line, that it gets a little more interesting.
Vernon is entering his fourth season, and is currently tied with David Bowens and Lorenzo Bromell for 13th on the team list with 21.5.In those three seasons, Vernon is averaging just over seven sacks a year (not that you could not have done the math of 21 divided by 3, plus a little for the extra half sack, but, hey, this isn't a math blog). If he just reaches his average this season, Vernon will jump from 13th to 9th on the career list, surpassing High Green (22.0), Tim Bowens (22.0), Marco Coleman (24.0), and Adewale Ogunleye (25.0).
If Vernon is able to match his 11.5 sack performance from 2013 (and with Cameron Wake and Ndamukong Suh on the defensive line with him, it could be possible), he would also surpass Randy Starks (30.5), Bryan Cox (31.5), and Joey Porter (32.0), landing in 6th on the Dolphins all-time list.
While we do have to caveat this with the fact that the NFL did not start counting sacks until the 1982 season, meaning there are players like Bill Stanfill (unofficially 67 sacks) and Vern Den Herder (64.5 unofficial sacks) that should be ahead of Vernon (and Wake, for that matter), but it is fun to see Vernon, someone who is often overshadowed by Wake, climbing into rare company for the Dolphins.