The Cleveland Browns stunned the sports world on Monday when they traded two-time AP Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams.
According to NFL insider Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, Browns general manager Andrew Berry consulted a group of sports executives that included former Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom before pulling the trigger on the Garrett blockbuster.
"Berry is part of a sort of think tank/buddy group of executives across sports that includes St. Louis Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, Oklahoma City Thunder GM Sam Presti and Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas. And both Bloom and Presti had been in Berry’s shoes," Breer reported.
Bloom served as the Red Sox's CBO from 2019 to 2023, a tenure that included his decision to trade 2018 AL MVP Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers in February 2020.
"Meanwhile, Bloom anchored that resolve with his story of trading Mookie Betts, when he was running the Red Sox, to the Dodgers in 2020," Breer wrote. "Dealing a player who was Captain America from a character standpoint, Bloom emphasized the importance of prioritizing finding a similar makeup in the players that he had coming back in the blockbuster."
Monday's deal between Cleveland and Los Angeles wasn't the first controversial trade that Berry's signed off on during his six-plus years at the helm.
The Browns acquired former Pro Bowl quarterback Deshaun Watson in a trade with the Houston Texans in March 2022, despite the signal-caller's ongoing sexual assault and sexual harassment scandal involving more than two dozen female massage therapists.
Cleveland then signed Watson to a fully guaranteed five-year, $230M contract, which was the largest in NFL history at the time.
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