Bengals had classless reaction to Myles Garrett sack record

Cleveland Browns pass rusher Myles Garrett made NFL history on Sunday by recording his 23rd sack of the 2025 season, the most by any player in a single campaign. The previous record had stood since 2001, when New York Giants great Michael Strahan recorded 22.5 sacks (the Pittsburgh Steelers' T.J. Watt equaled that mark in 2021).

Garrett's teammates swarmed him on the field to celebrate his legendary accomplishment after he finally notched a sack in the fourth quarter. He was lifted up on their shoulders and paraded around midfield at Paycor Stadium while the Cincinnati Bengals looked on.

Well, the opponents didn't particularly appreciate the gravity of the moment and had some pretty classless things to say about it after their 20-18 Week 18 loss.

“There’s five minutes left in our season. We’re playing for our lives here, and I was never told that we’re gonna stop the game," Bengals coach Zac Taylor complained to reporters postgame. "In a critical moment like that — and the refs just said that they made a decision that they were gonna stop the game — we’re trying to be on the ball and go and play with tempo, and the umpire just held the ball so that we couldn’t do anything.”

“That’s like me catching my 10th pass and the whole team running on the field," Bengals star wideout Ja'Marr Chase said. "They better stop the game when I do something in my back end [of my career]. That's all I got to say about that one."

Bengals let pettiness & AFC North rivalry get in the way of Myles Garrett's historic moment

Taylor and Chase's comments are some of the pettiest I've heard in quite a while. Like catching your 10th pass? Seriously? Garrett broke a nearly 25-year-old record. Oh, and Zac? Whatever lives you were playing for on Sunday should've been played for long before Week 18.

"You're fighting for your lives? Your lives have been over for the last 10 weeks," former NFL head coach and current ESPN analyst Rex Ryan criticized on Monday. "[Garrett] deserved his moment. Get over yourself, Cincinnati."

It's not like these kinds of things happen often, anyways. Breaking a quarter century-old record deserves a moment of recognition, especially during a game with zero playoff implications. However, Taylor may have a point about not having prior notification, especially if the game officials allowed the impromptu interruption.

But it wasn't an unprecedented thing that happened here. The NHL stopped a game for a whole 22 minutes when Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin scored his 895th career goal in April, passing Hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky for the all-time record. A Los Angeles Lakers game was paused when LeBron James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time scoring record in 2023. And the New York Yankees celebrated Aaron Judge for a moment at home plate after he hit his 62nd home run of the 2022 season, breaking the American League record held by Roger Maris.

Sacks are essentially the only common way defensive players can "score" without returning an interception or fumble for a touchdown. (No defensive player in NFL history has recorded more than two scoop-and-scores in a single campaign, if you were wondering.) So, this moment 100 percent warranted the pause in action for a brief celebration. Taylor and Chase are taking themselves way too seriously and just look petty for drawing any negative attention to things.