Myles Garrett was traded to the Los Angeles Rams in March, and now the truth about his time in Cleveland is starting to come out.
Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com dropped a report this weekend suggesting that Garrett was not the universally beloved figure inside the Browns building that his public persona implied. Cabot wrote that Garrett was “respected and revered” by his teammates but “wasn’t necessarily universally beloved” by everyone on the roster.
The detail in the report that stings the most is the description of Garrett as someone who stuck to a “tight inner circle” away from the team facility. That is the kind of thing teammates notice. It is the kind of thing that gets brought up after a player is gone, when the locker room can speak more freely about how things actually were.
Garrett spent nine seasons in Cleveland, accumulating five first-team All-Pro selections and two Defensive Player of the Year awards. He was the face of the defense, the franchise’s most marketable player after Joe Thomas retired, and the most consistent producer the team has had at any position in the last decade. The on-field résumé is one of the best in Browns history.
The locker room dynamic is harder to measure. Players talk to reporters, but they rarely tell you what they actually think about each other while everyone is still on the same team. The honest assessments come out in reports like this one, after the player has been moved and the room is more relaxed about being candid.
Cabot’s report also pointed to Jared Verse as the player the Browns expect to be “more of a force multiplier” than Garrett. Verse, the third-year linebacker, was the headline piece of the trade package Cleveland received from the Rams. He is 24, he has a magnetic personality, and the front office clearly believes he is going to be the kind of cultural fit that Garrett never quite became.
That is a bold claim. Verse has had a strong start to his NFL career and was a top draft pick out of Florida State. He has not yet produced anything close to what Garrett did in his prime, and asking him to be a force multiplier while replacing one of the best pass rushers of his generation is a heavy lift.
Verse has not exactly arrived without his own drama either. He was spotted recently wearing Dillon Gabriel’s No. 8 jersey, which apparently means he is going to take the number from the Browns quarterback next season. That is the kind of move that creates locker room friction even before you have played a snap with your new teammates.
So the Browns traded a player who was reportedly a bit aloof for a player who is already pulling rank on the jersey number of his quarterback. The cultural calculation here is interesting at best.
Garrett is now in Los Angeles, where he gets to play next to Aaron Donald’s old position group and add another superstar to a Rams defense that already looks dangerous. His production should remain elite. The Rams will not care if he keeps to a tight inner circle as long as he keeps producing 14 sacks a year.
The Browns are betting that personality matters more than production. That is a brave organizational philosophy. We will find out in 2026 if Verse can carry the weight, both as a player and as the locker room presence the Browns clearly believe he can be.
Either way, Garrett’s Cleveland chapter is closed, and the reports coming out now suggest the ending was a bit more complicated than the franchise let on at the time.
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.
