The Myles Garrett trade might have ended up in Los Angeles, but the Buffalo Bills were at least in the mix when Cleveland finally started taking calls.
Back in March, Garrett and the Browns agreed to a restructured contract, and that set off plenty of chatter that a deal could be coming after June 1st. Plenty of people brushed that off as noise, saying Browns GM Andrew Berry was simply using the kind of contract maneuvering his mentor, Eagles GM Howie Roseman, likes to deploy with big-money deals.
Cleveland also floated a proposal that would have allowed draft picks five years out to be traded. The NFL had no interest in that idea, but it still fit the larger picture of what the Browns were considering.
Then the trade happened.
Garrett is now with the Los Angeles Rams and getting ready for the first-ever NFL game in Australia. But according to Tom Pelissero’s new Substack notebook, the Rams weren’t the only team that checked in when the deal leaked. The Bills called Cleveland that day too, and they had been asking about Garrett’s availability on and off for the better part of two years.
Still, Buffalo never had a real path to getting it done. Pelissero reported that the Bills had no Jared Verse-level player to include, and that was the difference from Cleveland’s side. As the Browns GM made clear, Verse was the key piece in the deal.
Without that kind of young player to build around, Buffalo would have been forced into a more pick-heavy offer for Garrett.
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Browns Face One Week 1 Decision Fans Will Be Watching Closely
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The bigger watch, though, is at quarterback, where Todd Monken floated the idea of using rookie Taylen Green in a special package and perhaps carrying him as the active backup over Shedeur Sanders. Greens athletic upside is part of the appeal, but there are still questions about whether he is ready for that kind of Week 1 responsibility, which leaves one of the Browns most interesting decisions hanging right on the edge of kickoff. [Read more 🡒]