Myles Garrett Is Doing The Browns a Favor

Myles Garrett usurped the start of Super Bowl week in grand fashion, formally announcing his desire to be traded away from the Cleveland Browns. To hear the insiders tell it, this was hardly a surprise to Cleveland’s top brass, which knew of its star defensive end’s wishes long before he made them public.

Garrett’s trade request made it very clear that his top priority is winning a Super Bowl, and that he doesn’t think that the Browns’ roster is close to achieving that goal. He’s right. The Deshaun Watson contract was crippling; it appears Nick Chubb will never be “Nick Chubb” again; the offensive line is starting to decline, in part because of age but also due to the departure of Bill Callahan before this season.

Cleveland might not want to acknowledge their reality, and they might just tell Garrett to pound salt and risk having an unhappy superstar on the roster, but there’s also a good chance that they’ll get an offer for him that they can’t refuse, and use it to help kickstart a rebuild.

If that comes to pass, the Browns should thank Garrett for forcing their hand, and doing what their front office was evidently unwilling to do on its own: Acknowledge that the status quo wasn’t good enough, and wasn’t about to get good enough anytime soon.

T.J. Watt should follow Garrett’s playbook. Lord knows the Steelers could use the kick in the pants.

Watt is a year older than Garrett and has one year left on his contract. This is typically the time when star players get an extension from Pittsburgh; that’s how they’ve always done business.

Though he has said in recent weeks that he wants to be a Steeler for the duration of his career, Watt should consider a change of heart. It would be best for him and best for the team. They haven’t won a single playoff game during his career, and the way this year ended suggests they’re not getting any closer to ending that drought.

The Steelers went 10-7 and the Browns 3-14 in 2024, but the two teams are roughly the same in terms of how far away they are from being serious contenders. Just like a Garrett trade would help the Browns rebuild, dealing Watt would give the Steelers much-needed draft capital.

Of course, the problem is that the Steelers will never come to this conclusion on their own. Art Rooney II’s latest round of uninspiring excuse-making in his season post-mortem drove home a point that has become more and more obvious in recent years; this team’s brain trust, the top of its power structure, views the franchise’s present and future much more favorably than the rooting public.

I have no doubt that Mike Tomlin shares Rooney’s opinion on the team, and if pressed as to why, exactly, he feels bullish, he would say something like, “Because I know the guys in that locker room, I work with them every day, and I believe in them.”

Nice words for a Disney movie script, but laughably out of touch with reality. The reality is that not only are the Steelers lacking a franchise quarterback, but their defense, the NFL’s most expensive in 2024 in terms of both cash expenditures and percentage of the salary cap, is nowhere near as good as it needs to be.

There are holes on the defensive line, in the secondary, and, as ever, question marks at inside linebacker, despite the team spending handsomely on Patrick Queen in free agency. Pittsburgh also has one of the league’s oldest rosters – fourth-oldest, per Spotrac, to be exact – and the players with the three highest cap hits – Watt, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Cam Heyward – will play all or part of next season at 31, 29 and 36 years old, respectively.

I see nothing happening in the immediate term that suggests things are poised for a quick turnaround. Running it back next year with Justin Fields at quarterback is a recipe for 9-8 and another wild-card exit at best, and nothing more. Watt should have been shopped before last season, but even though the Steelers missed that opportunity, they can still try to do the smart thing now. There’s a chance he could still fetch a first-round pick, particularly from a team that needs additional edge-rushing help.

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Believe it or not, there are teams with the cap space to bring in Watt and give him a new contract that are much closer to winning than the Steelers. Washington is one. Detroit is another. You don’t think one of those two, or another serious contender, would be willing to part with a first-rounder, and maybe another pick to sweeten the deal? I think they would.

Again though, I must stress that Watt needs to provide the kinetic energy that gets the object at rest – the Steelers’ front office – to move. They won’t do it on their own. Their words and actions have made it clear that they are just fine with the status quo. Notice that despite Mike Tomlin saying there would be changes to the coaching staff after five straight losses to end the year, not one coach has actually been fired. If you’re still under contract as a Steelers coach, it’s almost a guarantee that you’ll see the duration of that deal, whether you deserve to or not. It’s the new “Steeler Way.”

Does Watt really want to spend the 2-3 very good-to-elite years he likely has left as part of this franchise? He’ll get paid anywhere he goes. I suspect the Steelers would be more than willing to try to do him a favor if he sincerely expressed a desire to be dealt. It would be a win-win for everyone.

I do feel compelled to point out that there’s an elephant in this particular room, at least as it pertains to my feelings on Watt’s future: I wouldn’t give him a contract extension. I would not commit to paying him the $35 million or so annually that he will want as part of a new contract.

I have no appetite for crossing my fingers and hoping that he ages gracefully into his mid-thirties. Stretches like the one he went through at the end of the season – no sacks for the last four games, including the playoffs in Baltimore, and no stats to speak of in the last two games – aren’t about to become commonplace, but they are indicative of a player who won’t be able to just suit up and dominate.

Tomlin once said that Watt was “visiting from another planet,” and for several years, that quip felt like a truism. However, he’s creeping towards being less extraterrestrial force, and more regular human on the field.

When Dan Rooney ran the Steelers, one of his maxims was that he would rather let a player go a year too early than hang onto them a year too late. The Steelers need a refresh. They desperately need a quarterback. T.J. Watt can help them on both fronts, but only as a trade chip.

Unfortunately, neither he nor the Steelers seem to have the stomach for it.