Kansas City Chiefs DE Carlos Dunlap is approaching a significant career milestone after his Week 9 performance, where he played his highest percentage of defensive snaps in Kansas City.
With 1.5 sacks on Titans QB Malik Willis, Dunlap has recorded 3.5 sacks since joining the Chiefs prior to the 2022 season. Add that number to his career tally and he’s just a half-sack shy of 100 sacks in his career.
“I’ve had a couple of games now with a chance to do it and we want to get that done – obviously so we can get over that hump,” Dunlap said ahead of the Week 9 game. “That’s not my sole goal, but that’s just a milestone and something that I told my dad that I was going to do, so it’s important to me to get that done. But obviously, I need 108 or 110 (sacks) to be in that legendary type of conversations (like) top 50 ever and stuff like that so those are real goals. But I promised my dad that I was going to do 100 and obviously losing him this year, getting that 100 early in this season is important to me.”
When Dunlap reaches 100 career sacks, he’ll become the eighth active player to reach that mark. He’ll become the 41st player on the NFL’s official sack leaderboard to have reached 100 career sacks.
“They just don’t give sacks out around here (laughter). You know what I mean? But no, that’s special, man,” Chiefs DT Chris Jones said after the game. “Guys played a long time in this league and never achieved that type of accomplishment, so kudos to him. He need(s) a half a sack and it took him eight games (to get to 99.5), so I can understand how challenging that is for him, and what’s going through his head. But, I’m proud of him on that aspect.”
Dunlap will have another opportunity in Week 10 against the Jacksonville Jaguars with Frank Clark sidelined due to a suspension. Their goal will be to jump out to a lead so that they can get Trevor Lawrence to throw the ball. That will give the defensive line an opportunity to pin their ears back and Dunlap an opportunity to reach his milestone after a strong Week 9 performance.
“He played solid,” Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo said of Dunlap. “I mean those are obviously key moments and big plays and we always want, you know we always want our guys making big plays that make a big difference in the game. That’s an overstatement, right? You get an interception, a fumble recovery, a sack, the play that Nick (Bolton) made on the screen was huge. But Carlos (Dunlap) made those couple of big plays and I thought he played solid in the other parts of the game that you don’t really see.”
While Spagnuolo is rooting for Dunlap, don’t expect him o to dial-up anything, in particular, to help him get that last half-sack.
“I’m a firm believer you let those things take care of themselves,” Spagnuolo said. “I hope he gets it and more. I hope he doesn’t get to 100 and stops there. But I do hope he accomplishes it in the next game.”
