For the second straight summer, an NFC contender has traded for one of the NFL’s best pass-rushers. Last year it was the Green Bay Packers making the big splash, acquiring Micah Parsons from the Dallas Cowboys; this year, the Los Angeles Rams are the team landing a superstar.
According to Ian Rapoport and others from NFL Network, the Rams are acquiring Myles Garrett from the Cleveland Browns, getting a five-time first-team All-Pro defensive end. Garrett is arguably — maybe inarguably — the best pass-rusher
in football, having earned Defensive Player of the Year honors two out of the last three years and setting the NFL’s official record for sacks in a single season last year with 23.
Heading back to Cleveland in exchange for Garrett is a package that consists of multiple draft picks, including at least one first-round selection, and edge rusher Jared Verse. While Verse is not the caliber of player that Garrett is, he still is a high-quality pass-rusher, having won Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2024 and making the Pro Bowl each of the past two seasons.
The 30-year-old Garrett signed a new contract in 2025, adding four years and $160 million in new compensation. The structure of that deal sets up most of Garrett’s in-season compensation as option bonuses that pay out on September 1st of each season. Those bonuses serve as signing bonuses, allowing the money to be prorated for salary cap purposes. Without that mechanism, the Browns would have had virtually no way of trading Garrett; instead, they are able to do so now, after the notable June 1st date, because future dead money rolls over onto next year’s cap. Garrett will cost the Browns approximately $15.5 million in dead money in 2026 and about $25.5 million in 2027, but Cleveland will indeed gain a bit of cap space in both years by trading him now.
In hindsight, it appears that the Browns and Garrett came to an understanding last offseason after Garrett demanded a trade. The deal signed in March of 2025 may well have come with an unspoken agreement that the Browns would trade Garrett this summer. Earlier this offseason, Garrett agreed to reschedule the payment of his option bonus from March to September, allowing for the cap numbers to work out. Now he heads west to play for the Rams, a team that fell one game short of the Super Bowl a year ago.
The Rams’ acquisition of Garrett should firmly plant them as one of the Super Bowl favorites again this year. Los Angeles had the NFL MVP in Matthew Stafford and the number one scoring offense in the NFL; now they have added the reigning Defensive Player of the Year to a defense that ranked 10th in points allowed and fifth in takeaways.
Los Angeles’ late-season schedule will now become absolute must-see TV for NFL fans. They face the Green Bay Packers — who should have their own elite pass-rusher back in time for the game — on Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, then host the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes the following Thursday. After games against the 49ers and Cowboys, the Rams then have to play the reigning NFC West and Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks twice in the final three weeks, including a prime time game on Christmas Day. Those two games could very easily end up deciding the NFC West division title and potentially the NFC’s #1 seed, and the Rams now have a new ace up their sleeve.
As for the Packers, rumors are starting to swirl that they are in the market for a veteran pass-rusher as well. Reports dating as far back as early March of this year have connected them with Josh Sweat of the Arizona Cardinals, a favorite of new Green Bay defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon. As with Garrett’s contract, Sweat would be more appealing to deal from the Cardinals’ perspective now that June 1st has arrived, as they could spread approximately $22 million of dead money out over this year and next instead of taking the full hit in 2026, and as a result, smoke is starting to swirl again about a potential move to Green Bay. Stay tuned for more on that story as it develops.
