Cleveland Browns fans woke up on Monday to the unfortunate news that superstar defensive end Myles Garrett had officially requested a trade, potentially signaling the end of a dominant eight-year run since the team selected him as the first overall pick in the 2017 draft.
Garrett has over 100 sacks under his belt and has posted double-digit sacks every year since 2018, so his trade market will surely be robust.
The dust hasn’t settled quite yet, but Dianna Russini of The Athletic recently shared what she heard about Garrett’s trade request, providing a little more insight into what is going on behind the scenes in Cleveland.
Russini posted on X that while Garrett’s public trade request is the story of the week, “it wasn’t a surprise to the Cleveland Browns – they’ve known about this request for some time.”
While Myles Garrett’s public trade request is the story of the week already, it wasn’t a surprise to the Cleveland Browns—they’ve known about this request for some time.
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) February 3, 2025
The interesting aspect of this is that General Manager Andrew Berry stated a few weeks ago that the team wasn’t looking to trade Garrett and mentioned he wouldn’t accept two first-round picks in exchange for him.
Perhaps that was creative language, and he already knew about the request.
That statement could have been him simply sending an early message that it would take more than a pair of first-rounders.
Garrett iterated in the final weeks of the season that he had no interest in being part of another rebuild, so his public trade request isn’t surprising since the Browns’ window for contention appears to be firmly shut until the front office solves a number of issues on both sides of the ball.
If Cleveland has known about this for a while and Garrett then decided to go public with the information, perhaps this will be a smooth breakup that nets the Browns a nice haul to jumpstart what will hopefully be a quick rebuild.
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