Browns’ Myles Garrett move raises questions, but a 2026 trade seems unlikely

The Cleveland Browns made an adjustment to Myles Garrett’s contract on Wednesday, and instead of the usual chatter about salary cap savings, fans were left debating the team’s next move with a future Hall of Famer who’s still firmly in his prime.

Per Field Yates of ESPN, Garrett and the Browns agreed to modified language in his contract around option bonuses due in 2026, 2027, and 2028. In a nutshell, those bonuses were originally scheduled for late March (Wednesday was this year’s deadline), but the two sides agreed to push those dates back to September, a week before the start of each year’s regular season.

Yates framed his report with a nothing-to-see-here tone, and for at least this 2026 league year, that’s definitely how fans should be taking the news.

According to Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap, Garrett essentially did the team a solid by turning an extremely player-friendly contract into a more team-friendly one. The Browns converted a portion of his future base salaries into annual roster bonuses to cover payment gaps, and in return, GM Andrew Berry got bonus dates more in line with his typical way of handling player contracts.

But here’s the big question: Why would the team mess with Garrett’s payment structure now, in Year 2 of his new extension, with a move that creates zero salary cap space for 2026.

To Fitzgerald, all this adjustment really does is make Garrett’s contract more tradable, if the two sides mutually decide to explore that option either this summer or in future seasons.

“The Browns don’t gain any cap room by making this move unless they actually changed the option amounts this year,” he wrote. “They already had the lowest cap charge possible for Garrett, outside of converting some per game bonuses to a signing bonus. 

All this does is give the team the maximum flexibility to trade Garrett assuming they were to get him to waive his no trade clause.”

Why a Myles Garrett trade doesn’t make sense for the Browns in 2026

The most important detail to remember as rampant trade speculation around Garrett undoubtedly swirls this week is the timing. With his $29.2 million option bonus for 2026 now deferred until September, the Browns would actually save about $8.1 million in cap space this year by trading Garrett after June 1. The acquiring team would take on his full real-cash salary for this season, which is $31.5 million, per Spotrac.

But context is required here. For starters, what benefit would the Browns get from trading Garrett this summer? Even if they received three first-round picks in return, those picks would be spread out over future seasons, starting in 2027.

The team would be undercutting Todd Monken’s first season as head coach, and essentially punting on 2026 before even playing a game in that scenario. Unless a game-changing player (preferably a No. 1 wide receiver) is coming back to Cleveland along with a record haul of draft capital, it just doesn’t make sense for the two sides to explore a trade this summer.

It could make more sense in the future, though, as Monken’s tenure takes shape and Garrett climbs deeper into his 30s. Garrett and the Browns are much more likely to align on a trade in 2027 or 2028, when the move could be made prior to that year’s draft. If the Browns are no closer to contending for Super Bowls at this time in 2028 as they are now, the team could trade Garrett, still fetch a massive haul, and also save $16.4 million on that year’s cap number, per Over the Cap.

So, yes, it’s fair to say that a path for Garrett to eventually leave Cleveland via trade has been cleared. All the upcoming ideas and hypothetical proposals for the summer of 2026 will be nothing more than conjecture, though.

Barring some sort of unicorn offer that would make the Browns better now, fetch elite future draft capital, and compel Garrett to waive his no-trade clause, Flash will be suiting up for a 10th season with the Browns in 2026, as planned.