Myles Garrett has requested a trade out of Cleveland, but it takes two teams to tango – and in this case, several would be interested in acquiring Garrett, but do the Browns really want to trade him? And even if so, can they afford to?
Daryl Ruiter covers the Browns for our sibling station 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland, and when he joined BMitch & Finlay on Wednesday, he wasn’t so sure it’s as easy as Garrett wants it to be.
“He’s not actually on the trading block, at least from the Browns' perspective. Myles wants to put himself on the trading block, but GM and VP of Football Ops Andrew Berry has been very adamant in telling people that he has no intention of trading Myles Garrett,” Ruiter said. “Now, Pat Riley released a statement saying he wasn't trading Jimmy Butler a month ago and we all know how that movie ended, but from a factual standpoint, yes, Myles Garrett wants out and is telling anyone and everyone that is willing to listen that he wants out and why he wants out, and the Browns are basically saying, no, we're not going to do that, we’re going to move forward with Garrett as a member of the Browns.”
The other problem, for the Browns anyway, is that their salary cap situation is such a mess, there’s a lot more to moving on from Garrett than just simply dealing him.
“I'm sure Andrew Berry is getting phone calls as we speak, but it's really hard to decamp now if he'll actually get moved, because the Browns are in a tough salary cap situation right now,” Ruiter said. “They're gonna have to do some contract restructures before the new league year commences in March, and Garrett has some bonus money that's due to him in March as well, which could inflate his actual cap number should the Browns trade him.
It would take him from the mid-30s to possibly over $40 million as far as the cap hit, so if they're going to move Garrett from a cap standpoint, they need to do it before the new league year. I just don't know that the Browns have room to absorb yet another $35 million in dead cap considering they're going to have to restructure Deshaun Watson because they're going to need to create another $30 million dollars-plus in cap space so that they can get close to being under the cap come the new league year.”
Oh, and don’t forget that that the Browns have a lot of needs on the field, but ‘there’s the reality that this was a $300 million football team last year that won a whopping three games.”
And yet, despite that, Ruiter agrees that Garrett might actually be UNDERPAID right now in his current deal.
“I know this is insane to say that at $25 million a year and you're underpaid, but considering the resume that he has and the marketplace, yeah, he is underpaid for what he's accomplished at 29 years old,” Ruiter said.
“He's the youngest player in NFL history to accumulate 100 sacks and the only player in NFL history with 14 or more sacks in four consecutive seasons. He’s a game-wrecker type of player and I think he could retire today and be a Hall of Famer, his resume is just that strong. All that being said, though, he wants to win.”
The Browns have had six losing seasons and almost as many head coaches in Garrett’s eight years, and there’s not much hope for that vast improvement, it seems, so…
“The Browns can say ‘we're close’ all they want until they're blue in the face, the bottom line is they’re not. You can’t win three games coming off an 11-6 playoff season and tell me you’re close to competing or that you're a quarterback away, because the quarterback that was a problem got hurt and did not play the bulk of the season, and to be perfectly candid, not much improved with the football team,” Ruiter said. “So yes, quarterback is a problem they have to address, but they have other needs to address as well, and Myles Garrett, who is in the locker room and knows a lot more than me, knows exactly where they're at and whatever plan Andrew Berry told him in the exit meetings and any further conversations they have had since, which clearly did not wow him and did not dissuade him from making this trade request.”
So, it might be in Cleveland’s best interest to acquiesce to Garrett’s request, but…
“It probably would from a team building standpoint, but again, they the salary cap and dead cap to deal with right now,” Ruiter said. “It’s easy for me to say they should move him, and I’m a believer if you don't want to be somewhere, don’t, but this is a Browns thing, not a Cleveland thing,” Ruiter said. “This is a Browns annual incompetence thing that he's tired of dealing with; it isn’t that he hates living in Cleveland, because he’s ingrained in this community and is a minority owner of the Cavaliers. That should tell you how bad it is with the Browns right now that he's doing this and is not going to sit around and wait for hope to come again; he sees his playing career mortality in front of him, and he wants to go somewhere where he can win – but again, it’s easy to see and say, okay, the Browns should get two first-round picks plus more, but he’s got a $35 million dead cap hit, so trading him is a little more complex than we want to make it out to be, so I give it a 60 percent chance of happening."