Cleveland Browns: Mary Kay’s interview with Myles Garrett shows different side

Myles Garrett’s world nearly came apart in 2019. Now he can talk about it.

Cleveland Browns fans, if you have not yet seen Mary Kay Cabot’s exclusive interview with Myles Garrett, it is definitely a must-see. Cabot is the perfect interviewer in that she allows Garrett to tell his story in a relaxed way, while still covering the most difficult episode in his career.

As virtually everyone knows by now, Garrett tangled with Mason Rudolph last November 14, and things escalated to the point where Garrett took off Rudolph’s helmet and tried to hit him with it. Needless to say, that could have gotten someone killed. The net result was several players on both teams being fined, and Garrett being suspended for the rest of the season and earning him national level ridicule and scorn.

In the interview, Garrett discusses how the terrible experience made him question whether he wanted to continue in football at all.

You get some insight into what makes the big guy tick when Cabot asks about Garrett’s trip to Tanzania in which he and an organization known as the Waterboys helped to dig wells for the village people who live there. If you google “Garrett, Waterboys” you can see Garrett interacting with people who live in vastly different circumstances than most Americans are used to.

Garrett takes a quiet joy in being able to help people, and his fame and financial resources provide a platform to help others. Not everyone knows that Garrett gives back through a number of charities off the field and how important that is to him.

There are people in Tanzania who need clean drinking water, and if sacking a few quarterbacks can help Myles Garrett bring it to them, well, that is what is going to happen. Sorry, quarterbacks.

That desire to give back to the world, as well as the desire to not be remembered for a fit of anger, caused Garrett to rededicate his life to football. He would much rather be remembered as a star athlete and not as a brawler. Not being able to help people would hurt his sense of well being. That actually may be his main motivation, rather than any kind of selfish motive.

When you listen to the interview, you realize that Garrett is a very intelligent, thoughtful person, and that the desire to help others is part of his core personality. Those of us who have followed him for a while have come to see his public personality is a very pleasant one. He loves animals and he likes playing with puppies. He’s the complete opposite of what you might expect a quarterback sackmeister to be like.

The Browns have faith in Garrett. Dee Haslam sent the right message, soon after the Rudolph incident, simply by wearing a hat with number 95 crocheted into it. Without creating any controversy, it told Garrett that ownership was not going to abandon him.

Then they got to work at the earliest opportunity to extend his contract. In other words, they treated him with respect, not only for being a sports superstar, but also for being the right kind of person to build the team around. And they stayed behind him when he was down.

That is very, very important. Hopefully, the fans in the Dawg Pound will also have his back because we are not going to see another player like this for a long long time. This is our guy, and he is the real deal. Management did the right thing to tie him to our team for the long term.

Thank you Mr. Garrett, and thank you Ms. Cabot for a great interview.