Browns trading Myles Garrett to Rams in NFL blockbuster: Sources

The Cleveland Browns have agreed to terms on a trade that will send two-time NFL defensive player of the year Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams, multiple league sources told The Athletic. The blockbuster deal will change the balance of power in the NFC and set Cleveland on a new path without its most accomplished player.

The full compensation wasn’t immediately available, but the Browns will receive at least a 2027 first-round pick and star pass rusher Jared Verse. The deal is pending physicals.

Garrett, 30, set an NFL single-season record with 23 sacks in 2025 and won his second Defensive Player of the Year honor. The Browns are in the midst of a roster rebuild and are looking to end their perpetual quarterback carousel, so they shifted their previous commitment to retain Garrett and will look to the future with the acquisition of multiple premium draft picks. The Browns made the playoffs twice in Garrett’s nine seasons.

Garrett took a trade demand public in early 2025 and vowed not to return to Cleveland. The Browns resisted the idea of trading Garrett — publicly and privately — and signed him to an extension in March 2025 that included more than $122 million in guaranteed money. But after a second straight fourth-place finish in 2025, the Browns fired head coach Kevin Stefanski, hired Todd Monken to replace him and now will move forward without Garrett, who has 125.5 career sacks.

Garrett did not participate in the team’s voluntary offseason program and did not personally meet with Monken after his hiring.

The Browns chose not to hire defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz as their new head coach last January, and the team and Garrett agreed to a contract modification in late March that deferred around $29 million in total bonus payments due to Garrett from late March to September over the next three years. That modification made it more financially feasible for the Browns to trade Garrett, and the trade happened now because of the NFL’s post-June 1 salary-cap rules.

Because the trade will be processed after June 1, the Browns will carry $15.53 million in dead money from Garrett’s contract on their 2026 salary cap and the remaining $25.56 million in dead money in 2027.

The Browns made Garrett the No. 1 pick of the 2017 NFL Draft, and after he missed the first four games of his rookie season with a high ankle sprain, he recorded a sack on his first NFL play. He broke the franchise record for career sacks in his sixth season, and last season he became the first player to record at least 12 sacks in six consecutive seasons.

This story will be updated.