The Cleveland Browns’ decision to trade Myles Garrett on June 1 has aged about as well as owner Jimmy Haslam and GM Andrew Berry could have hoped for. The team’s ability to add an immediate impact player in Jared Verse on top of a haul of draft picks, including a 2027 first-rounder, has the fan base very much on board with this new direction.
The only real issue since the trade was finalized is that fans haven’t gotten the true story of why the trade happened as soon as the calendar flipped to June, which is a key accounting date for salary cap purposes.
This is just one fan’s opinion, but it’s painfully obvious that Garrett wanted out. The team’s decision to push his 2026 option bonus payment back from late March to early September was the first red flag, and things only got more ominous from there as Garrett remained away from team headquarters and seemed disinterested in meeting new head coach Todd Monken.
In the latest episode of his podcast, ESPN insider Adam Schefter praised Haslam for pulling off two of the biggest sports trades in recent memory — Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams on June 1, and Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat on Tuesday, which was Day 1 of the NBA Draft. Haslam became a co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks in 2023, and he’s now overseeing the rebuilds of two major sports franchises.
Schefter may have inadvertently dropped a truth bomb for Browns fans on the true motivation behind the Garrett trade. It has been framed as purely a team decision through the media, but Schefter seems to say what every Browns fan already knew: Garrett got exactly what he wanted.
“So in both cases, Jimmy Haslam had a disgruntled star who wanted out, who he felt like he had to deal,” Schefter said. “And in both cases, I think they got back an awful lot of compensation. I know people like to rip on the Haslams and criticize them. Fine. But you cannot, in my mind, criticize making either one of these deals. And you cannot question the return that the Haslams got for either Myles Garrett and Giannis Antetokounmpo. And I think both his teams, the Browns and the Bucks, are set up for the long term.”
Adam Schefter just described Myles Garrett as a ‘disgruntled star who wanted out’
While refreshing to hear, Schefter essentially saying that Garrett forced the Browns’ hand this offseason flies in the face of the post-trade narrative the team has attempted to create.
The company line has been, in a nutshell: We love Myles. We expected him to be a career Brown. But we’re embracing a timeline this offseason centered around our recent influx of young talent, and the opportunity to acquire an ascending, 25-year-old edge in Jared Verse, on top of premium draft capital for the future, was too valuable to pass up.
Few Browns notes on Myles Garrett trade from @SportsCenter
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) June 1, 2026
*Browns' desire for a young, ascending pass rusher (and Jared Verse, specifically), shrunk candidate pool. Per team source, this was a Rams-specific deal because Rams 'hounded' CLE for a while.
*Myles Garrett did not…
There might be some truth hidden in there, but let’s tell it like it is. It’s the best look for all parties for the trade to be framed as the team’s decision. It makes it easier for fans to embrace the developmental years that lie ahead. It also allows Garrett to leave on the right terms with the Browns’ passionate fan base, rather than being the latest superstar to torch the franchise that drafted him on the way out.
To Garrett’s credit, he hasn’t done that. But the framing that this was a Browns decision alone? That feels highly unlikely with a well-tapped-in voice like Schefter throwing words like “disgruntled” around.
Garrett did publicly request a trade in 2025, but that was before he signed what was at the time the richest contract for a non-quarterback in NFL history. To Cleveland’s credit, Garrett followed that up with the most dominant season of his already Hall of Fame career. Just one year later, the $160 million extension the Browns gave him morphed into an extremely team-friendly deal with controlled cap hits and annual cash salaries well in line (and in some cases way below) with true market value for a player of Garrett’s caliber.
At the conclusion of the 2025 season, Garrett told reporters that he intended to stay in Cleveland as long as the franchise’s focus was solely on winning. In the following months, the Browns made a coaching change, overhauled the offensive line, and executed a major haul in the 2026 draft. By all accounts, the team addressed its biggest problem areas, bolstered its offense and special teams, and kept the core of one of the NFL’s best defenses intact. If Garrett had embraced the team’s offseason and thrown his support behind Monken from the start, the Browns likely would have adjusted his contract with a pay raise rather than trading him immediately on June 1.
He obviously wanted out. To Schefter’s point, the Browns got the peak return possible. The Rams are currently the runaway favorites to win the Super Bowl this year. Things wound up working out for both parties in the end.
Let’s just not pretend like the Browns had to trade Garrett on June 1. If he was fully aligned with the Browns’ direction and felt like he could one day bring a championship to Cleveland, he would still be on the roster. That certainly would have been the ideal outcome for Monken as he works to establish a winning culture in his first season as head coach.
As Schefter seemed to imply, Garrett was beyond ready for the team to trade him, and it’s well within his right to want to capitalize on what’s left of his prime now past the age of 30.
It’s better for everyone, though, if we can stop pretending like that wasn’t the case just a year into his latest contract extension.
Add us as a preferred source on Google