Cleveland Browns star defensive end Myles Garrett has officially requested a trade. Arguably the NFL’s best defensive player over the last few seasons, Garrett stated, “the goal has never been to go from Cleveland to Canton, it has always been to compete for and win a Super Bowl.”
Of course the Detroit Lions will be interested in trading for Garrett. Every NFL team should be; Garrett is a first-ballot Hall of Famer who remains an athletic superfreak at 29 years old, is scheme-versatile and one of the most respected players off the field as well as in between the lines.
What could the Lions offer?
It’s a little more complicated than offering potential draft pick compensation to acquire Garrett, who has bagged at least 14 sacks in each of the last four seasons. But in exchanges I had with a few Browns sources, the common denominator was a minimum of two first-round picks and at least one Day 2 pick. One longtime Cleveland media member put the starting point at “two firsts and Amon-Ra (St. Brown)”, which helps frame what the Browns are anticipating Garrett’s market value to look like.
Browns Wire’s Cory Kinnan referenced the Bears trade for Khalil Mack in 2018 as a baseline. Chicago sent two first-round picks, a third-round pick and a sixth-rounder to the Raiders for Mack and a second-round pick. However, Garrett has been more productive than Mack was at that point, and the Browns would need to make it worth their while to move on from Garrett.
The financials are an issue, both for the Browns and any team trading for him. Garrett will need a new contract. Any new deal projects in excess of $30 million per year, with a substantial portion (if not all of it) fully guaranteed at signing.
Cleveland, already saddled with the Deshaun Watson fully guaranteed deal, would have major cap issues in moving Garrett and his nearly $37 million in dead cap that doesn’t move with the player.
Just to run a quick scenario but prior to adjustments the Browns would need to restructure Watson and Ward to the fullest and cut Conklin to trade Garrett. Doing all of that would leave them with likely between $2M and 7M in cap space depending on where the cap winds up
— Jason_OTC (@Jason_OTC) February 3, 2025
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, but it would require some major will in wanting to dump Garrett to make that happen. Read as: the price tag for any team (including the Lions) is firmly in the sticker-shock realm and won’t be coming down. And that’s if the Browns opt to trade him, which is far from a given for this Cleveland regime.
My take
Garrett is my favorite non-Lions player in the league. He’s the most impactful defensive player and still in his athletic prime. He’s a perfect fit with Aidan Hutchinson in whatever type of defense new Lions DC Kelvin Sheppard would want to run. Heck, Garrett is perhaps the only player where Hutchinson would not remain Detroit’s best defensive player. Garrett is absolutely cut from the Dan Campbell/Brad Holmes cloth on and off the field.
Yet acquiring him–if the Browns do indeed honor his trade request, which is not a given–would completely cripple the fundamental tenet of how the Holmes/Campbell regime has operated. They value draft capital as the way to keep the depth chart bolstered and cost-controlled. Hypothetically adding Garrett and also paying Hutchinson, Kerby Joseph and (in time) Brian Branch, Sam LaPorta and Jameson Williams would effectively end that strategy.
But a guy can dream…