Will Anderson contract details just created a Myles Garrett mess Browns can’t ignore

It’s been barely over a year since the Cleveland Browns stiff-armed a public trade request from Myles Garrett and instead awarded him with a contract extension that made him the NFL’s highest-paid non-quarterback ever.

Much has changed over the past 420-plus days since the ink dried on Garrett’s new deal. He’s now a two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, fresh off recording the first official 23-sack regular season in league history.

And as wild as this may sound, he’s now grossly underpaid.

Assuming he reports on time, Garrett will enter the mandatory portion of the Browns’ offseason program as the sixth-highest-paid defensive player in football in terms of average cash per year. According to Spotrac, his $40 million AAV now trails fellow edge defenders Will Anderson ($50 million), Micah Parsons ($46.5 million), Aidan Hutchinson ($45 million), T.J. Watt ($41 million), and Danielle Hunter ($40.1 million).

Anderson recently jumped to the front of the line in his first year of extension eligibility. The Houston Texans left nothing to chance with their All-Pro pass rusher and recent No. 3 overall draft pick, locking him up through 2030 with a three-year extension worth $150 million. The deal included $107 million in new guaranteed money, per Over the Cap, and $134 million guaranteed in total.

Unfortunately for the Browns, they were one-upped by the Texans. While Anderson is a younger player than Garrett at just 25 years old, his deal makes the Browns’ four-year, $160 million extension for Garrett with $123.5 million guaranteed in March of 2025 feel like a heist (in Cleveland's favor). 

That’s why it wouldn’t be surprising if Garrett, who has noticeably remained quiet and away from the team headquarters since last year’s season finale, holds out for a significant pay adjustment. He already had leverage after the Browns passed on adding a pass rusher during the major roster-building period of the offseason, and he may have the team over a barrel even more now that Anderson’s full year-by-year contract details have been reported.

The guaranteed money gap is where this situation gets uncomfortable

According to Texans reporter Aaron Wilson, Anderson’s new contract includes a no-trade clause and significant cash flow over the initial years of the deal. He’ll earn $33.15 million in cash this season, and a fully-guaranteed salary of $21.9 million in 2027, which is essentially the number the Texans would have paid him on a fifth-year option.

The extension kicks in during the 2028 season — and it’s lucrative. According to Wilson, all but $500K of his $40 million salary that year is fully guaranteed, including for injury. He’ll trigger an additional $34 million in guaranteed cash for 2029 as long as he remains on the Texans roster through the fifth day of the 2028 league year. That all but ensures that he’ll make all $40 million of his projected cash in 2029 as well. There’s a de facto dummy year tacked on in 2030 with a non-guaranteed base salary of $41.5 million that will be addressed somewhere down the line.

Oh, and Anderson will pocket $500K in cash for each game he suits up for from 2028 to 2030.

Garrett is currently under contract with the Browns through 2030, but he has no guaranteed money in his deal beyond 2027. The start of the 2028 league year currently acts like a fork in the road for Garrett and the team, as Cleveland could shed salary and cap space by trading him ahead of free agency that year.

It would make sense for Garrett, coming off a historic 2025 season and now over the age of 30, to hold out for a contract restructure that pushes his future guaranteed money closer in line with that of Anderson and Parsons. It would take owner Jimmy Haslam pulling out his checkbook, but the Browns currently have over $100 million in non-guaranteed cash baked into Garrett’s deal between the years of 2028 and 2030 to play with. Chances are they make moves to guarantee the majority of that number and send a signing bonus Garrett’s way to reward him for his 2025 success.

GM Andrew Berry and the Browns did nice work with Garrett’s extension last year. Looking purely at the max value and annual cash flow, Anderson’s new extension is comparable to Garrett’s if laid out side by side. 

It’s the guaranteed money that stands as the outlier, and Garrett may not arrive in Berea until those details are addressed.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow