Myles Garrett posted a five-sack game, and all he has to show for it is his lousy $40 million contract. And bragging rights with T.J. Watt. With his fifth sack of the day, he passed Watt for career sacks, and Watt could not respond last night. But they both lost their respective games—and the Browns have lost far more.
“I’m frustrated. I want to win”, Garrett said of his record-setting day, breaking his own single-game franchise sack record. “I don’t care how dire the situation looks, I want to try and make something happen. So I hate coming out of situations. I hate that kind of inevitability and not being able to do anything about it”.
The first-overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, Myles Garrett has the most sacks in the NFL in that period. As of yesterday, at least, after he passed Watt. He has spent his entire career with the team that drafted him, the Browns, yet he publicly demanded a trade earlier this offseason. Rather than continue to push, he signed a contract worth $40 million per year, adding a no-trade clause. At the time, it was the largest contract for a non-quarterback in NFL history, but multiple contracts have passed it already.
If it’s any consolation to Garrett, he is now tied for the NFL lead with 10 sacks through eight games. But based on his post-game comments, it wouldn’t seem so. “It doesn’t get any easier”, he said when asked about his frustration with the Browns losing. “And each week you ask me, so”. Asked about how feelings about his record day in light of the loss, he said, “I would throw the whole performance away for a win”.
That is, of course, what anybody should say in a team sport—publicly, even if they feel otherwise privately. Even when players break records in wins, they still say it wouldn’t have meant much without the win. Garrett may truly feel that way about his sack record, but he has understandably lost some public benefit of the doubt. After all, he made a big deal about wanting the Browns to trade him because he wants to win. He insisted he wouldn’t play another game with the team.
And now he’s giving press conferences every week talking about how frustrated he is with losing while putting up perhaps the best season of his career. Despite his frustration, however, he isn’t pointing fingers, certainly not at rookie QB Dillon Gabriel. At least not this week. About Gabriel, Garrett said he’ll be a great quarterback soon, even while expressing frustration with the journey to get there. And he had a message to himself and the locker room.
“Don’t quit. Keep your head up. Hold everyone’s feet to the fire, even my own. Try to find some kind of remedy for this and how we can improve”.
Despite Myles Garrett’s five-sack game, the Browns are now 2-6 on the season. They are now heading into their bye week, but then they play the Jets, which should be winnable even for them. But they still have the Ravens, 49ers, Bears, Bills, Steelers, and Bengals to come. And the Bengals might have Joe Burrow back by then.
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