I had pondered doing some type of tie-in to the Cleveland Browns related to it, but was thinking about what the angle would be. I thought I could make a comparison to the Browns ditching Baker Mayfield in exchange for Deshaun Watson, but the magnitude of stardom in that deal wasn’t quite as high. Now, we do have a tie-in related to the Browns, just a few days after the NBA world was shaken: Myles Garrett has officially requested a trade.
The circumstances regarding Garrett are obviously much different than the one involving the Mavericks and Lakers, since this is a player-initiated request. If we go way back to the days of LeBron James’ first stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers, I’d say that it is a lot different too.
Garrett has given eight very strong years to the franchise, whether they’ve been a contender or not. He’s played through injuries. He won the Defensive Player of the Year award for the first time last season, and he’s up for it again this season. His goal isn’t that he wants to play in a city where he’s more marketable or in the spotlight — he wants to play for a team that has a chance to win the Super Bowl while he’s still in his prime, and he implies that he doesn’t believe Cleveland is headed in the direction for that in the immediate future.
As a die-hard fan of the Browns, I think we get Garrett’s point entirely. The trade for Watson set the franchise back for years to come — a failure of epic proportions. The team just wasted the 2024 season of philosophical changes on offense and will revert back to 2023 in the approach. That is something that fits the offensive line’s strengths better, but that’s also a group full of talented players who are getting up there in age. Much like Joe Thomas’ injury and ending of his snaps streak pushed him over the edge to finally retire years ago, the same could be true for Joel Bitonio if he sees a guy like Garrett jettisoned out of here:
From the Browns’ perspective, though, I view the situation like this: Garrett still has two years left on his contract, and Cleveland’s intent is fully committed to getting back to the postseason next year. They’ll need to find the right quarterback and some other pieces to change their fortune, but they are not going to tank intentionally for a couple of years. Therefore, this request from Garrett should not encourage the team to trade him. The team’s mentality right now should be, “Garrett remains a huge part of our team for 2025; now if a team wants to blow us away with a trade offer that can give us an ever better chance of winning now, we’ll listen.”
The discussion of what that trade package could involve is already up for debate among reporters. CBS insider Jonathan Jones says that at a minimum, the discussion starts with two first-round picks, and then only goes up from there among bidding wars:
Dianna Russini of The Athletic didn’t echo the same sentiment, claiming to have talked to an NFL general manager. Her impression is that the compensation would more likely be one first-round and one second-round pick, or one first-round and two third-round picks:
The thing to remember in all of this is that the Browns don’t have to say, “Awww, man, we really didn’t get a good offer for Garrett; unfortunately, we’ll just have to settle for the best package proposed, I guess.” No — the Browns are the team here that needs to be blown away for a deal to happen. We might not get the crazy haul we got for Trent Richardson back when Jim Irsay made that insane trade, but it should be something that heavily favors Cleveland.
There is also a big condition on Garrett’s trade request: he wants to play for a team (rather immediately) that he believes he can win a Super Bowl with. It does him no good to move to say, the Carolina Panthers or New England Patriots. If he goes to a contender, those are teams that typically will have worse draft picks (i.e. first round picks that aren’t near the top of the draft), making it a far less enticing deal for Cleveland.
My immediate money for now is betting on Garrett staying in Cleveland, but it’s a situation that will certainly be fluid and involve a lot of debate over the next two months as the offseason, free agency, and the draft approach.
