This may be a miserable season for the Cleveland Browns, but one of their main lynchpins is having another impressive season.
Pass rusher Myles Garrett, the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, is putting up his usual numbers, and his usual numbers mean he’s leading the league in three key pass-rushing categories.
Per Pro Football Focus, he’s first in pass rush grade, pass rush win rate and total pressures.
Myles Garrett currently leads the league in:
🟤 pass rush grade
🟤 pass rush win rate
🟤 total pressuresPass rusher rankings ahead of Week 16:https://t.co/dvKRDCWDJ5
— PFF CLE Browns (@PFF_Browns) December 19, 2024
While the Browns have struggled at times defensively, Garrett continues to do his thing, and through 14 games, he has accumulated 11.0 sacks, 25 quarterback hits, 16 tackles for loss and three forced fumbles.
He ranks fifth in sacks in the league and is just 1.5 sacks behind Trey Hendrickson of the Cincinnati Bengals, who leads everyone with 12.5 sacks.
It’s unfortunate that most of the rest of Cleveland’s defense hasn’t held up its end of the bargain.
While cornerback Denzel Ward leads the league with 19 passes defended and could end up joining Garrett on the AFC’s Pro Bowl team, Cleveland has had trouble stopping the run — they rank just 23rd in rushing yards allowed and 29th in rushing touchdowns allowed.
On three occasions this season, they have allowed their opponents to register at least 400 total yards of offense.
The Browns’ final three games of the season will be somewhat of an audition for some of their younger players on both sides of the football as far as whether they could be back with the team next season.
That is especially true at the quarterback position, where a decision needs to be made as to whether Jameis Winston or Dorian Thompson-Robinson will be their starter moving forward, or whether they may look to draft a quarterback.
NEXT: Insider Notes Interesting Fact About Dorian Thompson-Robinson's Start
