Myles Garrett Wasn’t ‘Universally Beloved’ in Cleveland, Report Says, as Browns Look to Jared Verse Era
Myles Garrett was the best defensive player in Cleveland Browns history. He was not, according to a new report, the locker room glue everyone assumed he was.
Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot wrote Sunday that Garrett was respected and revered inside the Browns building but was not “necessarily universally beloved.” He stuck to a small inner circle outside of the team facility and was not the kind of unifier that some superstars become for a franchise.
The replacement Cleveland traded for, third-year linebacker Jared Verse, is reportedly expected to be “more of a force multiplier” than Garrett was. That is a striking thing to put in print about a future Hall of Famer who is barely out the door.
The Garrett Trade Looks Better by the Day
Cleveland sent Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams in March in a deal headlined by Verse going the other way. At the time it felt like the Browns selling low on a franchise icon because they were tired of carrying his contract through a rebuild. Months later it is starting to look like a Browns front office move that should have happened sooner.
Garrett still has the resume. Five first-team All-Pros. Two Defensive Player of the Year awards. The franchise sack record. That production is not going to be replaced one-for-one. Verse had nine sacks last season and is a real player, but he is not Garrett.
The pitch is that he can be more for the locker room than Garrett ever was. Verse is loud, sociable, and visible inside the building. He has been doing media in Cleveland since he arrived. He was already wearing Dillon Gabriel’s old jersey number, which created its own minor friction inside the room and at least started the conversation about who was actually setting the tone.
That is what Cabot is getting at when she calls Verse a force multiplier. A great player who lifts everyone around him is worth more than a slightly better individual player who does not. Garrett, fair or not, never quite shook the image of a guy who was great for himself.
The Rams will take that trade every day. Garrett is going to win them games on his own. He is going to terrify quarterbacks. He is going to make Aaron Donald-era Rams highlight reels look quaint. Kam Curl already said his defense has a chance to be legendary, and he is not wrong.
The Browns are betting on personality and projection. That is a risky bet on paper. They are also a team that has been wrong about quarterbacks, head coaches, and locker rooms more than any franchise in the league. Sometimes the right move is to break the room and start over.
Verse will get every chance to prove the report right. If the Browns defense looks more cohesive this fall, Cleveland is going to claim vindication on a trade that felt like a panic move at the time. If Verse plateaus, this report is going to get pulled out every time Garrett wins a Super Bowl with the Rams.
Either way, the era is over. The Browns are not Myles Garrett’s team anymore. They have not been for months. Now they are saying it out loud.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
