When the Cleveland Browns traded Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams on June 1, the public reaction from his former teammates was notably restrained. No farewell posts flooding social media. No extended tributes. Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot has an explanation for why, and it goes back further than the trade itself.
“While Garrett was respected and revered by his teammates, he wasn’t necessarily universally loved,” Cabot wrote. “And while he evolved as a leader over the years, he wasn’t the great unifier the Browns always hoped he’d be, often keeping to his tight inner circle away from team headquarters. In fact, the team revolved so heavily around Garrett, he often unwittingly dwarfed his teammates.”
Feb 12, 2026; Livigno, Italy; Cleveland Browns player Myles Garrett in attendance in the women’s halfpipe final during the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at Livigno Snow Park. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
On the Orange and Brown Talk podcast, Cabot expanded further on the same theme.
“When you talk about the fact that fans haven’t seen guys write or say a lot about Myles, I think that there are some reasons for that. If you look back to the previous year when he went all around the Super Bowl asking to get the heck out of Dodge, I don’t think that necessarily said ‘team building’ to a lot of guys. I’ve also been told that even though Myles was very well-respected and, in some cases, revered, he wasn’t necessarily loved by his teammates. He didn’t inspire that warm and fuzzy, big, booming kind of love that some people have for their teammates.”
Mary Kay Cabot of https://t.co/Q57vtHb1cp said Myles Garrett was highly respected within the Browns organization but did not necessarily have the type of close, “warm” relationships with teammates that generate strong personal bonding in the locker room.
“When you talk about the… pic.twitter.com/MwQDsXTXN9
— BrownsNation.com (@BrownsNationcom) June 19, 2026
What Jared Verse represents that Garrett, by Cabot’s account, never quite did
Garrett’s trade request in Feb 2025, made publicly during the Browns’ playoff stretch run, is the moment Cabot points back to.
Asking out of an organization while pursuing personal goals reads differently to teammates than it does to outsiders evaluating a roster.
The contrast with Jared Verse, the edge rusher Cleveland received in the Garrett trade, has already become a talking point inside the building. “Early indications are that Verse, who came to town with a wide smile, a big heart and open arms, will be more of a force multiplier and unifier than Garrett, who’s not as gregarious as the 2024 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year,” Cabot wrote. Verse showed up eager for voluntary OTAs, sessions Garrett routinely skipped throughout his Cleveland tenure.
All said, none of this erases what Garrett accomplished on the field.
He broke the single-season sack record with 23 in 2025 and won his second Defensive Player of the Year award in three years. But the locker room dynamic Cabot describes offers a different lens on why a player of that caliber generated such a muted reaction from the people who spent the most time around him.