CLEVELAND, OHIO (TheOBR.com) - Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
Before we begin today's Massive Morning Missive, an apology for its lateness. I woke up at the usual time, but soon discovered that my automated Newswire builder - a complex contraption like a digital version of Pee-Wee Herman's Wake-Up Machine at the start of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure - was not operating correctly. Shortly after fixing it, I fell asleep on my keyboard and only woke up after forming a QWERTY impression on my forehead.
So, prior to spewing on today's designated topic, many apologies if you had to start the day with some Bloviation Substitute, like searching the internet for old Ziggy comics or, God forbid, exploring the depths of the Twitter sewer (a topic I plan on writing about tomorrow).
But let's reset a bungled morning and ponder the big news of the week, which is the Browns' deal of Myles Garrett to the Rams, receiving in exchange Edge Jared Verse and three draft picks.
I was blown away by Albert Breer's look into the deal, which appeared in Sports Illustrated yesterday. Some of the things I learned made me think more of Browns GM, Andrew Berry, who has come under fire from some corners for the deal.
The Garrett-to-LA trade didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened over the course of more than two months, with Berry reaching out to a small circle of trusted executives — none of whom work in the NFL.
Breer reports that Berry is part of an informal "think tank/buddy group" of front-office minds across sports. When the Rams came calling with an offer that included Jared Verse, Berry didn't just run the numbers. He picked up the phone and called:
— Sam Presti, GM of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Presti walked Berry through the 2019 Paul George trade, reminding him that while everyone fixated on the mountain of draft picks OKC received, the real prize turned out to be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — a young player who would become a back-to-back MVP and lead the Thunder to the 2025 NBA championship. The lesson: draft picks are lottery tickets. Established young players are checks you can actually cash.
— Chaim Bloom, now with the St. Louis Cardinals, formerly the Red Sox executive who traded Mookie Betts in 2020. Bloom's advice: when you trade a franchise icon, the players you get back need to have "similar makeup" in both character and talent. It's not just about the stat sheet — it's about who's walking into your building.
— Kyle Dubas, GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins, was part of the same circle, though Breer didn't detail specific counsel from him.
This borders on cool. It's one thing to have a binder full of trade-value charts and cap projections. It's another thing entirely to have a GM who's cultivated relationships with the best minds in basketball, baseball, and hockey — and who actually listens to them before making the biggest trade in franchise history.
Andrew Berry
Andrew Berry (Photo: Getty)
I'm near retirement age (although I have no plans to retire), yet I rely on a series of mentors and advisors both outside and inside the virtual OBR building. I've learned the hard way that no one knows it all, and relying on others also interested in the OBR's success help restrain my reign of error. One simply has to be willing to take and evaluate outside advice from well-meaning people.
Berry emerged from those conversations with a three-point framework:
The deal had to benefit the Browns from a football standpoint. Non-negotiable.
They had to get back an established young player, not just picks. Presti's SGA lesson, applied directly.
They had to do right by Myles Garrett.
That third point matters. Breer reports that Berry "had no plans to trade Garrett until Jared Verse was included in the Rams' offer." The framework wasn't "get the most value." It was "find a deal that lets us move forward without gutting what we're trying to build."
The other thing that jumps out from Breer's reporting: this deal took over two months to negotiate, and it never leaked. Not a whisper.
Think about that. In an era where every front office has more holes than a screen door — where draft picks get tipped, free agent visits get photographed, and assistant coaches can't order lunch without a beat reporter hearing about it — Berry kept the biggest trade in Browns history completely under wraps until it was done.
He "kept trade talks close to his chest in-house in Cleveland," Breer writes, and only reached out to "a few people outside of his circle." That's discipline. That's an organization that has figured out who it can trust and — just as importantly — who it can't.
For a franchise that spent years being the league's punchline for organizational chaos, this borders on behind-the-scenes competence. You don't pull off a trade of this magnitude with zero leaks by accident.
Andrew Berry will continue to receive criticism from some corners, which is only natural in the highly competitve pro sports environment. I'm taking a "wait and see" approach to this trade because so much relies on what is eventually done with those draft picks. But I like the process, and in most businesses, having the right process eventually pays off.
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THE LIFT
Positive news from the world of sports and beyond...
File this under "things the internet gets right": the entire run of *Mister Rogers' Neighborhood* is now officially on YouTube. Every episode. From the very first one — a black-and-white gem from 1967 — all the way through the cardigans and the trolley and the gentle, unwavering insistence that you are special just the way you are.
The Fred Rogers Company has been gradually uploading episodes, and you can now watch Mr. Rogers talk to children about feelings, about kindness, about what to do when you're scared — all in that unhurried, almost radical-in-its-calmness way that nobody else has ever replicated. In an era where every platform is engineered for outrage, where algorithms reward the loudest and angriest voices, the idea of a man sitting down, putting on a sweater, and simply listening to children feels borderline subversive.
And that helps the whole neighborhood. Good Good Good | Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on YouTube
WRAPPING UP
When not pretending he knows what he's doing, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride — while the platform still exists — or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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