Cleveland Browns

Rams General Manager Les Snead says the Myles Garrett trade was months in the making.

Snead said at Garrett’s introductory press conference in Los Angeles that he and head coach Sean McVay started talking about making big moves to improve the defense as soon as the offseason started.

“How did we end up with Myles Garrett sitting between Sean and myself? When Sean and I met for the first time to talk about the offseason, we did discuss how we could add to the defense,” Snead said.

Adding to the defense is one thing. Adding the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year is something else, something that Snead first thought would be possible in March, when Garrett and the Browns modified Garrett’s contract in a way that made him easier to trade. Snead says he called Browns General Manager Andrew Berry as soon as that happened to get a sense for whether the Browns were signaling with that contract change Garrett would be available in a trade.

“When Cleveland made the adjustment to his contract, not sure if it was a signal, they made an adjustment,” Snead said. “I’ve got a good relationship with Andrew Berry, thought I’d just check in. Let’s check in. Myles, he’s a Cleveland Brown, he’s on their Mount Rushmore, so they were a no. But Andrew and I have a good relationship, we like talking about football a good bit, so I would pester him a little bit, probably jokingly at first, then we began talking a little more seriously.”

Snead said Berry turned down his offers of a package of draft picks for Garrett, but the Browns were willing to consider it if the Rams would trade Jared Verse, a talented young pass rusher.

“We tried to do this with draft compensation, then the draft came and went,” Snead said. “We picked talks back up, we tried to discuss more draft compensation. At the end of the day, and where it got a little tough for us, is they asked for Jared Verse in return. And similar to Cleveland at first, we were a no, based on all that Jared’s done for our organization. During May, we kept trying, we tried to figure out a solution, but as the June 1 date came, as it was getting closer, probably some time late May, we had a decision to make. We knew where Cleveland stood, they knew where we stood, and we proceeded to make the trade.”

Snead said he was also aware of Garrett’s no-trade clause, which would have allowed him to refuse the trade.

“Myles had a no-trade clause,” Snead said. “I remember asking Andrew after about a month of talking, ‘Myles has a no-trade clause, are we going to have gone through all this and he’s going to say no?’”

Garrett didn’t say no, and Snead finally made his long-awaited trade.

After the Browns hired Todd Monken to be the team’s new head coach, incumbent defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz decided to move on.

In an appearance with Ryan Ripken, Schwartz addressed his decision to resign from the team after he didn’t get the head-coaching job following the firing of Kevin Stefanski.

“We had a lot of success on defense, and the Browns made a change at head coach, and they passed over me, with all the success that we had and the ability to develop players, our best players had their best years, all those different things,” Schwartz said. “And that was the decision they made. They wanted to go with an offensive guy. They chose Todd. I’m fine with that.

“They can make, you know, decisions that they want to make. But they can’t expect me to stay on board for that. Anybody that’s in any business, you get passed over for a promotion, when you’ve done a really, really good job in your job, and you think you were in line for that promotion, it’s time to go.

“And Todd deserved his own guy. A forced marriage isn’t gonna work in the NFL. And, you know, like having command of the players and having command in a locker room, all those things are extremely important, and I didn’t feel like I could do my job after getting passed over for that coaching job. It sort of, you know, just put me in a tough position. ‘Hey, we want you to listen to this guy, but we didn’t think — we didn’t want to make him that coach.’

“So I made the decision to resign, and I have to sit out this year as a result, but I think anybody that’s been in any business when you’ve done a good job when you mentioned those numbers — we weren’t one of the best defenses in three years. We were the best defense in three years. And the decision they made, that’s their decision.

“But to expect me to stay and to be on board for that, that’s just a tough situation. And it wouldn’t have been good for me, and it wouldn’t have been good for Todd. So it was best for him to get his own guy in there, and to move forward with him, as opposed to just having an arranged marriage, and having me there, and maybe having some players more loyal to me than him. It can just be a bad situation. Thirty-three years in the NFL, I’ve never been around that before. So, you know, that all went into decision.

“I wasn’t upset about it. I was disappointed about it. I wasn’t upset about it. I wasn’t mad about it, but it’s just, you know my experience told me that wasn’t gonna be a situation that was gonna work.”

The most obvious question is whether defensive end Myles Garrett would have wanted to stay with the Browns, if Schwartz had become the head coach. Regardless, it’s better for the Browns to have gotten significant value for the 30-year-old Garrett. With each passing year, that would have been harder to do.

On Monday morning, before the Browns traded defensive end Myles Garrett to the Rams, Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer flagged the Rams, Cowboys, and Eagles as potential destinations.

Multiple reports have indicated that the Browns wanted defensive tackle Jalen Carter from the Eagles, but that the Eagles weren’t interested in that.

Via Jeff Kerr of SI.com, the Eagles offered Nolan Smith or Jalyx Hunt instead.

The Eagles’ insistence on keeping Carter is a bit confusing, given that the forward-looking Eagles have yet to sign Carter to a second contract. In March, after the Eagles signed defensive tackle Jordan Davis to a new deal, it was leaked that they have gotten calls about Carter, which often is part of a strategy aimed at getting more.

The challenge for the Eagles as to Carter is his fifth-year option salary of $27.1 million in 2027. Given that number, he may be looking for a market-level deal well in excess of $30 million in new-money average.

For 2026, Carter is due to make only $3.723 million in the fourth year of his first-round rookie deal. He shouldn’t set foot on a practice field until he gets his second deal. The team’s refusal to include him in a trade package for Garrett should only strengthen Carter’s resolve in that regard.

Myles Garrett learned a week ago that a trade to the Rams was a possibility. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year held his breath until it came to fruition on Monday.

“I was surprised,” Garrett said, via video from the team. “It was a bit of excitement, being in L.A., a lot of roots here, and knowing there’s a winning culture and some great teammates and great coaches here. You know I was definitely looking forward to the opportunity, God willing.”

In Garrett’s nine seasons in Cleveland, the Browns went 58-90-1 with two playoff appearances and one playoff win. The Rams have 10 playoff wins in that time with two Super Bowl appearances and a Super Bowl title.

“Since the very beginning, it’s always been about winning,” Garrett said. “It just breaks down to the timing of everything. What does it realistically look like to be a winner now? To have an opportunity to do that immediately, that was an opportunity that was just too difficult to pass up. I’ll always have love in my heart for Cleveland, the city, the community, all the players and everything else, but the opportunity to come here to have an immediate and profound impact on this team, it was something I just had to move forward with.”

Garrett, 30, has double-digit sacks every season except his rookie season of 2017. He has 125.5 career sacks, including an NFL single-season record of 23.

In the immediate aftermath of the blockbuster trade that sent Myles Garrett from the Browns to the Rams, there was reporting that Cleveland was a “hard no” on potentially moving another top veteran defender, cornerback Denzel Ward.

Back when Garrett requested a trade in February 2025, Ward admitted that the request had “a huge impact” on him.

It stands to reason with that with Garrett no longer on the team and with a new coaching staff, Ward might not be entirely happy with the current state of the organization.

But General Manager Andrew Berry said on Tuesday that Ward’s status with the franchise has not changed, making it sound like the franchise has no intention to shop him.

“So, I’d say No. 1, I think it’s probably most appropriate for Denzel to speak for himself,” Berry said in his press conference. “No. 2, Denzel’s been great throughout the offseason. His communication’s been good. He’s a big part of the team, and we like him a lot.

“He’s still playing at a really high level. That doesn’t change with this transaction.”

Berry added that even with the myriad changes that have gone on in the organization since the end of the 2025 season, he’s anticipating veterans like Ward will be fine with the club going forward.

“[C]hange is commonplace in the NFL and roster turnover is commonplace in the NFL,” Berry said. “You know, we have good communication with all of our players. You know, obviously for a move of this magnitude, we communicate directly with them. So, they hear it from us and they understand everything that’s involved.

“But we have a good group of guys in that locker room, and we’re really excited about the core.”

Berry and the Browns may not actively be shopping Ward. But as the Garrett deal made clear, the Browns will pick up the phone and listen if the offer is good enough.

The Myles Garrett trade can be fairly characterized as a win-win for the Rams and the Browns. It’s also a win for the NFL and the TV audience.

Garrett’s former team, the Browns, has one prime-time game in 2026, on a Thursday night in Week 4 against the Steelers. All of Cleveland’s other 16 games start at 1:00 p.m. ET on a Sunday.

Garrett’s new team, the Rams, has seven prime-time games. They could be flexed into another, per league rules.

Beyond that, the Rams have a pair of significant 4:25 p.m. ET games: Week 14 at the 49ers on Fox and Week 15 vs. the Cowboys on CBS. Both will likely be televised in most American markets.

It means that, thanks to the trade, millions more will see Garrett play this year, in both night games and high-stakes, big-platform Sunday afternoon windows.

Currently, the Rams are scheduled to play only twice at 1:00 p.m. ET on a Sunday. At the Eagles, and at the Commanders.

The Rams have relished the periodic “eff them picks” vibe of the past several years. On Monday, L.A. applied a twist to that mindset.

Eff them picks that panned out.

Every unused draft pick is an unscratched lottery ticket. The possibilities are limitless, but the reality is there’s a chance the player won’t fulfill his NFL potential. Defensive end Jared Verse has.

He was the 2024 defensive rookie of the year. He’s a two-time Pro Bowler. He’s not a guy you usually trade.

For the Browns, Verse is a first-round pick plus. He’s a lottery ticket that you know is a winner. And he’s five years younger than Myles Garrett.

Verse also has a low (relatively speaking) slotted rookie deal. He’ll make $2.1 million in 2026. He’s on the books for $2.8 million in 2027.

That said, things get interesting next year. First, the window will be open on a second contract for Verse. Second, Verse’s pair of Pro Bowl appearances will unlock a much higher fifth-year option.

So, yes, at some point the Browns will have to give Verse the financial reward that the Rams won’t be financing. Still, the Rams have paid the bulk of Verse’s four-year, $15.1 million rookie deal. The Browns will get him for two years, at less than $5 million.

Bottom line? Getting Verse is better than getting a first-round pick. Which gives the Browns a first-round pick, a second-round pick, a third-round pick, and a recent first-round pick who has proven to be a winning lottery ticket.

After Browns General Manager Andrew Berry shared insight into why the team traded Myles Garrett during a Tuesday press conference, he shifted to fielding questions about his plans for the 2027 first-round pick that the team acquired in the deal.

The Browns now have two first-round selections to make in a class that many believe will have multiple quarterback prospects worthy of coming off the board near the top of the draft. Deshaun Watson is in the final year of his contract while Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel have yet to prove themselves, which led to Berry being asked if he saw the additional first-rounder as a chance to “ultimately solve the quarterback issue.”

“We’re way too premature to figure out how we’re going to deploy that asset,” Berry said, via a transcript from the team. “We’ve got an entire season to play. We’ve got a group of players that we’re really excited to see this fall and, you know, we’ll deal with 2027 in 2027.”

Berry was asked other questions regarding using the pick for quarterbacks, but repeated that he wasn’t interested in “dealing with hypotheticals” about what’s going to be on the table for them next year. Given how many other teams may also be in the market, that’s likely the wisest approach at this point in the calendar.

The centerpiece of the blockbuster trade between the Rams and Browns on Monday was edge rusher Myles Garrett.

But edge rusher Jared Verse, who is headed to Cleveland, was the critical piece to make the deal work.

That’s according to Browns General Manager Andrew Berry, who told reporters in his Tuesday press conference that it was Verse’s inclusion in the deal that made it go from a hypothetical to a real possibility.

“Jared Verse, he’s obviously a huge part of this return for us,” Berry said. “Jared is an outstanding football player. Former defensive rookie of the year, two-time original ballot Pro Bowler, he’s a perfect DNA match for our attacking front. He’s really a terror in both phases, both as a run defender and a pass rusher. And we are really, really excited to add him to our team.

“He allows us to continue to play defense at a high level, which has b been our standard over the past several seasons. And we’re really excited to welcome him to the organization.”

Verse, 25, was the No. 19 overall pick in 2024 and has registered 12.0 sacks, 22 tackles for loss, and 45 quarterback hits over his first two seasons.

“We liked him a lot coming out,” Berry said. “We weren’t really in a position to take him, obviously, the year he came out because he came out in ’24. I would say that probably had less of a bearing on this transaction. But what made it really easy is that he’s an outstanding player at 25 years old at a very, very hard-to-find position. Yes, we’re excited to have him specifically. But it’s not necessarily like this was a two-year focal point in the making.

“Usually when you make these trades, you’re completely trading off present for future,” Berry added. “And to get a player like Jared in the deal where the defense still maintains its excellence, that was really attractive to us.”

Born in Dayton, Verse is an Ohio native and will now be returning to the state.

“He was very excited yesterday when we talked to him on the phone,” Berry said. “He’s ready to go. I think he’s really excited to play in the scheme. Maybe some of you already know, he’s from Dayton, Ohio — his sister is still here and everything like that. He’s going to be fun. He has a ton of energy now. There’s going to be some colorful quotes for everybody in this room.”

But more than that, the Browns are expecting to get a high-quality pass rusher who will significantly impact games.

“I wouldn’t sit here and put a cap on any player’s ceiling,” Berry said. “I just know the list of players that have been defensive rookie of the year and original-ballot Pro Bowlers in their first two seasons is very small.

“He’s a perfect fit as an edge rusher for our defense.”

Browns General Manager Andrew Berry said early in a Tuesday press conference that discussing a Myles Garrett trade was not something he had on his “bingo card” for the offseason, but that’s where he found himself after Monday’s bombshell move that sent Garrett to the Rams.

Berry said that Garrett’s absence from the team this offseason wasn’t a factor in making the trade now and noted that Garrett had not requested a trade. He said the Browns “weren’t auctioning him off” because there weren’t many places the team could find what they would want back in a deal for the reigning defensive player of the year.

Berry said that the team required premium draft assets and a young elite player back in any deal in order to preserve their short- and long-term goals. The Rams sent their 2027 first-round pick, edge rusher Jared Verse and two other picks to Cleveland in the deal and Berry pointed to the “incredibly important” inclusion of Verse as the thing that really got the ball rolling.

“In terms of the ‘why now,’ the opportunity was too great,” Berry said. “It wasn’t like a Plan A going into the offseason. Quite honestly, we would have operated differently if it was. Sometimes things come across your path that you’re not expecting. You can’t be so dogmatic in your strategy and planning that you can’t adjust and be flexible.”

Berry said he had “no regrets” about not making a deal when Garrett requested a trade after the 2024 season and said he feels all of the team’s goals are still on the table after making a deal that shook up the league.