Things keep getting worse for the Cleveland Browns.
Superstar pass rusher Myles Garrett requested a trade Monday following the Browns’ disappointing 3-14 season.
“While I’ve loved calling this city my home, my desire to win and compete on the biggest stages won’t allow me to be complacent,” Garrett, 29, said in a statement. “The goal was never to go from Cleveland to Canton, it has always been to compete for and win a Super Bowl.”
The request comes days after Browns general manager Andrew Berry said he would not trade Garrett, telling reporters he wouldn’t even consider an offer of two first-round picks.
“You can put that on the record,” Berry said, according to Cleveland.com.
Garrett is on a Hall of Fame trajectory with 102.5 sacks over eight NFL seasons, all with the Browns, who drafted him first overall in 2017.
The North Texas native is entering the fourth year of a five-year, $125 million contract.
A six-time Pro Bowl selection, Garrett won NFL Defensive Player of the Year last season and is a finalist for the award this year, too. He recorded double-digit sacks in each of the last seven seasons, including 14 in both of the last two.
But the Browns boast only two playoff appearances and one postseason win during Garrett’s tenure. They plummeted from an 11-win season in 2023 to last year’s disaster.
Cleveland owns the No. 2 pick in April’s draft and is expected to be in the market for a quarterback, with Miami’s Cam Ward and Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders considered the best prospects at the position.
The Browns remain hamstrung by quarterback Deshaun Watson, whom they owe $92 million over the next two seasons.
Watson recently re-tore his right Achilles tendon, putting his 2025 season in jeopardy. He has been among the NFL’s least-productive quarterbacks since the Browns acquired him from Houston in 2022 for three first-round picks and gave him a fully guaranteed $230 million contract.
There is recent precedent for Pro Bowl pass rushers to be traded.
In 2018, the Chicago Bears traded four draft picks, including a pair of first rounders, to the then-Oakland Raiders for Khalil Mack, who was 27 at the time.
Last spring, the Giants sent a second-round pick and a fifth-round pick to the Carolina Panthers for Brian Burns, who was entering his age 26 season.
