Browns should have traded Myles Garrett instead of signing him to historic extension

Myles Garrett is the most feared and ferocious pass rusher of his generation. No one in the NFL was double-teamed more last year and he still managed 14 sacks while working into the Defensive Player of the Year conversation on a three-win team.

Garrett is the type of player who makes offensive line coaches — not to mention tackles and guards — tremble. Teams build their blocking schemes every week around accounting for him at all times. If he stays healthy, Garrett’s retirement will most certainly reside with a bust inside the Hall of Fame.

None of that can be disputed and all of it is important context.

Yet I still believe the Browns should have traded Garrett rather than signing him to a historic extension. Not because of Garrett’s trade request, but rather because it was in the best interest of the franchise given the intersection where this team resides and Garrett’s career timeline.

I’m fully aware of the cap complications a Garrett trade presented. The line of suitors would have been just as long in June when a trade would’ve been a bit more manageable than it is now.

All of that is irrelevant following Garrett’s mammoth extension that will earn him $40 million per season and guarantees him $123 million. He is a Cleveland Brown for the foreseeable future and perhaps for the rest of his career, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Nevertheless, the Browns are not close to a Super Bowl. The Deshaun Watson trade wrecked the contention window with this group of veterans. The Browns are in denial to believe otherwise.

Can they find a veteran quarterback this month and maybe scrape into the playoffs next year as a seventh seed? Sure. This is the NFL and the teams at the bottom of the playoffs rotate annually. But there is a wide gap between playoff contender and viable Super Bowl contender. The Browns are not realistically contending for a Super Bowl in 2025. The list of things that have to go right for this team to be a Super Bowl contender in 2026 is longer than the number of things that have gone right for this franchise in the last 25 years.

Garrett seemed to realize that when he initially made his trade request known, and nothing has changed in the weeks since, other than the amount of zeroes Jimmy Haslam put in front of him.

That’s how Haslam solves all of his problems: by throwing money at them.

For the record, spending money is obviously paramount to winning in any league. I’ve known executives in various sports who have passed on jobs as a general manager because of an owner’s lack of spending.

Haslam’s biggest hammer as an NFL owner is his checkbook. The Browns spent more money last year than any other team in league history. They’ve spent more than $1 billion in cash over the past four years, far more than any other team. The Browns restructure contracts to create cap space as well as any team in the league, but they don’t have one playoff victory to show for all that spending since 2021 because check writing is Haslam’s only tool in the bag.

Watson says, no, he won’t come to Cleveland?

Give him the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history.

Garrett says he wants out?

Give him the largest non-quarterback contract in NFL history.

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“I think Cleveland was pretty steadfast, they were not going to trade him.”

DP reacts to Myles Garrett signing a record-breaking extension with the #Browns after requesting a trade last month. pic.twitter.com/jgzCJisJZy

— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) March 10, 2025

The Haslams have owned the Browns for more than a decade and still can’t seem to get the culture part right. At times under Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski, it appeared the organization was finally figuring out how to operate like an actual NFL franchise. Then came the Watson debacle and everything that has followed, and it’s fair to wonder if anything has changed.

Haslam did exactly what he should’ve done when Garrett asked for a meeting. He told him to talk to Berry. Perfect response. The problem was Garrett’s side more than likely leaked publicly that Haslam wouldn’t meet with his best player and it was framed as if Haslam somehow did something wrong. He didn’t. But Garrett’s excellent negotiating team threw the perfect punch at the perfect time. Within days, Garrett had a new deal.

I was having dinner at the combine a couple of weeks ago with an assistant coach on what would widely be viewed as a successful NFL franchise.

“If Jimmy Haslam spent two weeks with us, he’d throw up at the amount of money he wastes,” the coach told me. His point was that while money is important, it takes a lot more than just throwing cash at head wounds to win in this league.

As for Garrett, at which point was he being truthful? When he said his plan was never to go from Cleveland to Canton, it has always been to compete for a Super Bowl? When he said on the “Rich Eisen Show” that it wasn’t about the money, that he just wanted to win a championship? When he was aggravated two years ago with all the losing and close to going public with his unhappiness?

Garrett had no leverage in this. The Browns controlled his rights for the next four seasons, counting franchise tags. Yet Garrett and his representatives still managed a no-trade clause in his new deal, giving him all the leverage and power in this relationship from this day forward, just as Watson had all the power with his massive, fully guaranteed deal.

Garrett will make an average of $40 million a season into his early 30s. Bruce Smith and Reggie White, two players Garrett is most often compared to, were still highly productive into their late 30s. So there’s reason to believe Garrett can still produce at a high level deep into his career. But it’s easy to see the risk in this, too.

For as dominant as Garrett has been throughout his first eight years, the Browns have won nothing with him on the roster. Trading him while his value was at its peak could’ve netted the type of return necessary to maximize the search yet again for a franchise quarterback. This organization isn’t winning anything substantive at a high level without one.

I hope, at the very least, this contract brings a sense of responsibility rather than entitlement for Garrett.

It’s well known within the Browns that Garrett is frequently late to the facility. He has skipped mandatory team activities on multiple occasions. Veterans typically police the locker room on those types of things and create the culture of accountability, but here, it’s the best player breaking the rules. That has to change now.

Elite performers earn more forgiveness than anyone. That’s true in any business. But there’s a certain level of responsibility that comes with a contract of this magnitude.

If Garrett truly wanted out of Cleveland, if he really wanted to prioritize winning at this stage of life, those feelings won’t dissipate because of a few extra zeroes on his checks.

It’s clear by now that Watson never wanted to be in Cleveland. He took the money and we know how it ended.

Now it’s Garrett’s turn. The money is generational wealth for whatever he wants to accomplish in life.

But it won’t buy him a Lombardi Trophy.

(Photo: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)