Myles Garrett is officially a part of the Los Angeles Rams. The Cleveland Browns shipped their two-time Defensive Player of the Year west on Monday, and the football world is still trying to process the fallout. Among them is Robert Griffin III, who sees something deeper in this trade.
Robert Griffin III Breaks Down How Myles Garrett Outmaneuvered Everyone
What Griffin is focusing on is how Garret engineered his exit. It was slow and deliberate, starting with a simple trade request and ending with everything the pass rusher wanted. For him, the deal has likely already led to a title. “Myles Garrett and the Los Angeles Rams just won the Super Bowl,” he said.
Then he pivoted to the part he cared about the most. Garrett requested this trade before last season, as he wanted a championship-contending team, yet he signed a four-year, $160 million extension and stayed. “He was criticized by many for taking the money,” Griffin noted, even with contention in Cleveland looking impossible.
But now, Garrett has both money and the move. “He got exactly what he wanted,” Griffin added. “Traded to a Super Bowl-contending team, the LA Rams, he still got paid, and he gets to spend his free time in LA with his Olympian girlfriend Chloe Kim.”
Sixteen months passed between Garrett’s first trade request and this deal, and Griffin sees his patience pay off. California taxes will eat into the check, but it wouldn’t matter to Garrett, who’s already a winner out of this deal. Griffin feels the money is still “more than enough price to be paid to win,” he said. Then came the line that stuck as he said Garrett is “playing chess, not checkers.”
Inside the Blockbuster That Sent Myles Garrett to the Rams
The deal took plenty of back-and-forth to close. Cleveland insisted early on that it had no interest in moving Garrett, but the Rams refused to walk away.
As per league sources, LA kept calling Cleveland to get him to join their roster. Things intensified shortly after this year’s NFL Draft, with Cleveland holding firmly to their stance.
BE AN NFL GM: PFSN’s Ultimate GM Simulator
Eventually, the Browns set their price. No deal would happen without Jared Verse, the 25-year-old former first-round pick who racked up 12 sacks and 22 tackles for loss over his first two seasons.
According to PFSN’s EDGE Impact Metric, Verse posted an impact score of 86.3, ranking 13th in the league. The Rams weren’t eager to part with him, but eventually came around once the draft compensation got adjusted to their liking.
Garrett’s time in Cleveland was riddled with organizational turbulence. He was the face of the franchise, won two Defensive Player of the Year awards, and closed out his run with a record-breaking 23 sacks last season. But the Browns never managed to build a contender around him. His hunger to chase another ring was impossible to ignore.
The move to LA hands the Rams another game-wrecker up front as they push towards a Super Bowl.
