BEREA, Ohio — Myles Garrett was quick to shut down any talk of his recent speeding ticket in the Cleveland area, the one for going 100 mph in a 60 mph when on his way home from the Browns road trip to Charlotte for the Panthers game.
Reporters gave him four chances to express remorse and say he wouldn’t do it again, and he wouldn’t budge.
It was dramatically different than Browns rookie Shedeur Sanders, who was contrite about his two violations in June here for high rates of speed, and vowed not to do it again.
A reporter first asked Garrett “what is it like to be in that car and seeing that speedometer creep up toward 100 miles?”
“I’d honestly rather talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off field, other than the Back to School event that I did the other day,” he said.
The same reporter started to say that people want to know about it …
“People want to know a lot of things, but I try to keep my personal life personal,” Garrett said. “I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
Cleveland.com asked him if he wanted to say what he learned from it and vow he’d never do it again.
“I’d rather talk about something that’s more focused on this team, what we’re doing, what we’re trying to accomplish,” Garrett said.
Changing the subject, a reporter asked Garrett how this camp has been different for him. He said he’s been given more of a leadership platform to take charge in ways he hasn’t before.
The first reporter went back at the speeding issue again, saying, “so you talk about being a leader, so what kind of a leadership does that show when you get pulled over for speeding again?”
“Again, you’re asking the same question, and I’ve answered it two different times,” Garrett said. “So I’m going to need you to ask a different question so I can focus on this team and not, you know, this headline you’re trying to get out of these questions you’re asking.”
Coach Kevin Stefanski said Aug. 13 that Garrett’s speeding citation was “extremely disappointing. It’s been addressed with Myles and with the football team. He needs to slow down for his safety and the safety of others.”
He was cited at 2:01 a.m. on Aug. 8 morning for going 100 mph in a 60 on Interstate 71 in Strongsville, for which he was issued a $250 ticket. The Browns had just landed back in Cleveland at 1:30 a.m. after their 30-10 victory over the Panthers in the preseason opener the night before.
His citation list includes tickets on back-to-back days in September 2021, when he was caught going 120 and 105 in a 70 mph zone.
His most recent incident came two months after Sanders was cited for speeding twice in Northeast Ohio, once for going 91 mph in a 65, and once for going 101 in a 60 before paying his first ticket.
Sanders was admonished by Browns GM Andrew Berry and Stefanski after those two incidents, and vowed to slow down. Berry also publicly sternly rebuked Sanders in his annual training camp address on July 24, speaking not just to him, but to everyone on the team.
“Not smart, just not smart,” Berry said then. “He understands the implications, he understands the consequences. I think the thing is it’s not just about yourself. It’s not just about having a joy ride, it’s not just about driving a car really fast, but it’s about the fact that you can endanger other people. It’s about the fact that if a deer or someone cuts out in front of you, like your reaction time. It’s just dangerous and it’s not something that we want our guys to be doing. It’s not something that they should be doing.”
He added, “the No. 1 reason is because we don’t want some type of catastrophic accident … We don’t want that occurring with anyone in our organization.“
This post will be updated.
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