In the NFL's relentless attempt to colonize every day of the American sporting calendar, 2026 might be the year that the league officially plants a flag and takes over June 1. On a day when the football landscape was already prepared for an A.J. Brown trade and learned about the de facto retirement of a legendary quarterback in Russell Wilson, the Los Angeles Rams and Cleveland Browns one-upped everyone and made the biggest move of the offseason.
Months after Andrew Berry insisted that any conversation about trading "career Brown" Myles Garrett would amount to wasting breath, the Browns' general manager sent the best player in the modern history of the franchise to the Rams. And weeks after drafting Ty Simpson and raising concerns that the Rams weren't sufficiently all-in around reigning MVP Matthew Stafford in 2026, Rams GM Les Snead confidently pushed all of his chips into the middle. Los Angeles traded a first-round pick in 2027, a second-round pick in 2028, a third-round pick in 2029 and a wildly talented edge rusher in third-year pro Jared Verse to Cleveland in exchange for Garrett.
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Some trades are difficult to understand. This one is not. The Rams, who are competing for a Super Bowl this season, just added a future Hall of Famer. They'll be the first team since the 1970 merger to field the reigning Most Valuable Player on the offensive side of the ball and the Defensive Player of the Year on the other. And the Browns added draft capital and a very talented young player who better aligns with their competitive window over the next two to three years. That part of the trade doesn't require detailed analysis.
But does this trade really put the Rams over the top? Did the Browns get enough in return? Is Garrett the best player to ever be traded in the prime of his career? Let's get into those sorts of questions as we break down one of the more dramatically unexpected deals in recent league history.
Jump to: Why'd the Rams do it? Why'd the Browns do it? Will it work out for both sides?
Why the Rams did it
I don't believe that a month of criticism over the Simpson pick really mattered all that much to Snead and the Rams' front office, but it was fair to wonder whether the team was being as aggressive as its situation seemed to dictate. Stafford, coming off his first MVP campaign, is 38 years old. Coach Sean McVay has flirted with the idea of retiring and joining the media in years past, most notably after a disappointing 2022 season.