Myles Garrett to the Rams: Why Cleveland Just Lost the Trade Even With Jared Verse Coming Back
The Cleveland Browns just traded Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams for Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-round pick, and a 2029 third-round pick.
That is the trade. Read it again. Take it in. Now ask yourself if Cleveland actually won.
Verse is good. The 2025 Defensive Rookie of the Year is exactly the kind of pass rusher you build a defense around. The future draft capital is also significant. Three additional picks across three drafts gives the Browns ammunition to keep restocking the roster. On the surface, the deal looks fair.
It is not fair. Myles Garrett is a top-three player in football. He is a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate. He has more sacks over the last six seasons than any other player in the league. He is 30 years old, which is old for a position group, but he has shown no signs of decline. The Rams just acquired one of the most disruptive forces in football.
The Browns traded him because they had to. Garrett requested out. The team had no leverage. He made it clear he wanted to play for a contender, and Cleveland was unwilling to commit to building one around him. The trade was inevitable. The return was almost certainly the best the Browns could get under the circumstances.
That does not mean the trade was good. It means the trade was unavoidable. There is a difference.
The Rams now have a defense that can win them a championship. Their pass rush was already top-ten with Verse leading the way. Replacing Verse with Garrett upgrades the pass rush to elite, full stop. Pair Garrett with Aaron Donald’s former defensive scheme principles and the rest of the front, and the Rams are going to be a problem for Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes, and every other quarterback they face this season.
Matthew Stafford is 37, but the offense around him is more dangerous than it has been in years. Adding a top-three defensive player to a roster that was already competitive immediately puts the Rams in the NFC championship conversation. This is the kind of move championship-window teams make when their window is starting to close.
For Cleveland, the path forward is clearer but harder. They now have Verse, an elite young pass rusher entering year three. They have draft capital to rebuild the offensive line and pick up another premium player or two. They can finally commit to a long-term quarterback solution instead of cycling through reclamation projects. The future is more flexible.
The present is grim. The Browns are not winning a playoff game with this roster. They are probably not winning the AFC North. They are starting over, even though they are calling it a refresh.
The bigger question is whether the front office can actually execute a rebuild. The Browns have struggled to draft and develop pretty consistently. The pressure on the new general manager and the head coach is going to be intense. If they whiff on the 2027 first-rounder, the entire Garrett trade looks bad in two years.
For the Garrett legacy in Cleveland, this is a sad ending. He was supposed to be the player who put the Browns on the map for a generation. Instead, he is the player who walked when the franchise could not match his ambition. That is on the team, not on him.
For the league, this trade reshapes the championship picture. The Rams are now a top-three NFC team. The Browns are now a project. Everyone in between has to figure out where they stand in this new reality.
Myles Garrett is a Ram. The Browns better hope Jared Verse becomes everything Garrett was, plus more. Otherwise this trade is going to haunt Cleveland for years.
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.
