Al Baker in tears after becoming new unofficial single-season sack king

Former NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Al Baker is finally getting his due, and he's overjoyed with the development.

Pro Football Reference recently updated its site to include sack stats dating back to 1960. Sacks weren't an official stat until 1982.

As a result of the update and research involved, Baker now holds the unofficial record for single-season sacks after collecting 23 while with the Detroit Lions in 1978, his rookie campaign. New York Giants legend Michael Strahan set the official record with his 22.5 sacks in 2001.

"For some reason, and I'm not kidding you, without any prompting, tears just started running down my eyes," Baker said of his reaction to the new unofficial record on the "Around The NFL" podcast, according to NFL.com's Grant Gordon.

"You know, somebody tells you you're a sack leader and what do you do, you start crying," he continued. "And I guess it's because none of us really sat around like some players and, 'We want this and we want that.' We hadn't thought about it for at least, for at least, I'm not kidding you, 20 years."

While the single-season sack leader has unofficially changed, there was no such movement atop the career sack leaderboard.

Buffalo Bills Hall of Famer Bruce Smith still owns the most career sacks with 200, while Reggie White is second on the list (198). Unofficially, Deacon Jones vaults Kevin Greene for third. The Los Angeles Rams legend now sits at an unofficial 173.5 sacks, with Greene behind him at 160.

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