For a brief moment, it appeared that Myles Garrett was on his way out the door in Cleveland. The star pass rusher even went so far as requesting a trade, a development that sent shockwaves through the organization and the broader NFL landscape. However, the Browns ultimately managed to convince their cornerstone defender to remain with the franchise, putting an incredible 160 million reasons on the table to stick around in Northeast Ohio. With that massive financial commitment securely in place, it now appears more than likely that Garrett will spend the entirety of his storied professional career anchoring the defensive line in Cleveland.
Garrett certainly earned that landmark contract through years of relentless production, establishing himself as one of the most consistently disruptive pass rushers in the entire National Football League. Over a four-year stretch, he delivered remarkably steady outputs, registering between 26 and 33 quarterback hits and racking up 14 to 16 sacks in each campaign. As he formally enters his age-30 season, there is virtually no hint of a decline in his game. While some fantasy football analysts and IDP managers have occasionally pointed to a modest total number of solo and assisted tackles as the only minor downside to his overall profile, his otherworldly ability to disrupt the passing game more than makes up for any perceived shortcomings in the run-game stat sheet.
Building upon his already impressive resume, Garrett added further personal accolades to his collection in 2023 by capturing his very first Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year award. From a pure output perspective, however, Garrett’s raw production dipped slightly in terms of total tackles and total sacks compared to his absolute peak years. Part of that slight regression was due to circumstances outside of his control, specifically being held out of Cleveland’s final game of the regular season for rest purposes. A more influential factor, however, was a nagging shoulder injury that had noticeable, lingering impacts on his performance during Weeks 12 and 13.
Once he was given adequate time to recover from the shoulder issue, a deeper dive into Garrett’s underlying advanced metrics suggested there was no actual decline in his physical skills or his fundamental ability to disrupt opposing offenses. Most notably, Garrett actually set total career highs during that stretch in both quarterback pressures, with a staggering 86, and quarterback hurries, logging 57, while simultaneously matching his career-best mark with four fumbles forced. Analysts and observers agree that if he can manage to navigate an entire 17-game schedule in full health, his statistical production is primed to bounce right back up to the elite levels he established back in 2021 and 2022.
Operating firmly as the undisputed top dawg within the Browns’ pass-rush unit, Garrett put together yet another incredible campaign by making history. He became the first defensive player since legendary pass rusher J.J. Watt accomplished the feat across the 2014 and 2015 seasons to record consecutive 16-sack campaigns. During that dominant stretch, Garrett finished eighth overall in the league with 38 quarterback pressures, sitting just ahead of teammate Za’Darius Smith, who contributed 37 pressures of his own. It proved to be a remarkably fitting dynamic, as the veteran edge defenders now bookend the line of scrimmage in Cleveland.
The addition of Smith was widely viewed as a major upgrade over Jadeveon Clowney, and when Smith remained healthy, any extra attention he managed to draw from opposing offensive coordinators only made Garrett that much more dangerous off the edge. Having originally entered the league as the 2017 first overall draft pick out of Texas A&M, Garrett strung together five consecutive seasons featuring double-digit sacks, and securing a sixth straight year of ten-plus sacks appeared well within his considerable reach as he continued to terrorize opposing signal-callers.
Garrett’s reputation as a reliably elite force means that any fluctuations in his year-to-year statistics are almost entirely the direct product of fluctuations in playing time and game scripts rather than any dip in talent. The presence of quarterback Deshaun Watson at the helm of the Cleveland offense was projected to provide a significant boost to Garrett’s defensive stats. The reasoning was straightforward: a potentially quick-scoring Browns offense would naturally force opposing teams to abandon the run and rely heavily on the passing game, thereby giving Garrett a much higher percentage of pass-rush opportunities within his total snap count. While he might not always be locked in as the definitive number-one defensive lineman off the board in Individual Defensive Player fantasy formats, taking him first among defensive linemen carries virtually zero risk of hurting your roster.
Reflecting back on his developmental trajectory, even as early as his fifth professional season, Garrett had already established himself as a permanent mainstay among the league’s elite defenders despite still technically not having reached his absolute ceiling. During a two-year window covering his age-23 and age-24 campaigns, he totaled an impressive 22 sacks spanning 1,313 total snaps. Periodic missed time due to minor injuries and rest decisions made those raw season totals look somewhat more modest on paper, but a deeper analytical look reveals just how dominant he truly was. When applying that same elite sack rate directly to the 1,013 snaps he played during his sophomore NFL campaign, his production easily projected out to a massive 17-sack season. An outcome matching those lofty projections was always firmly in the cards for a player of his caliber, especially as the Browns continued to build rosters capable of earning late-game leads that forced desperate opponents into predictable passing situations.
Assuming he could maintain his composure and keep his emotional intensity directed entirely toward opposing blockers, analysts regularly projected Garrett to break out into a consensus First-Team All-Pro season. While occasional moments of lost judgment earlier in his career prompted external scrutiny, his physical talent and on-field productivity were never in question. Boasting top-shelf physical conditioning and the stamina required to play upwards of 1,000 rigorous snaps per season, Garrett’s elite per-snap production consistently left the door wide open for a historic IDP season. Even if he made zero overall improvement on his already staggering per-snap numbers, his historical career production up to that point easily projected out to roughly 47 total tackles and 14 sacks across a standard workload of 950 snaps. Furthermore, considering he would remain at the exceptionally young age of 25 shortly after Christmas, projecting natural year-over-year improvement in his per-snap efficiency was not just hopeful thinking, but a statistical expectation.
The reality of Garrett’s eventual breakout as an elite defensive end was always framed by analysts as a matter of when, rather than if, with many correctly predicting that the massive leap would occur during his third NFL season. By that point in his professional journey, Garrett had already accumulated 20 career sacks across 1,532 snaps, all while celebrating his 23rd birthday around the turn of the new year. Even though opposing offensive lines made neutralizing Garrett the absolute primary focus of their game plans, playing within a loaded Cleveland front seven provided him with plenty of crucial support from talented teammates. Combined with a presumptively strong Browns offense capable of jumping out to early leads, opponents were routinely forced to throw the ball frequently, exposing themselves directly to the devastating pass-rush threat posed by Garrett off the edge.
While he may not have initially possessed the decades-long professional resume of other veteran defensive linemen targeted in IDP drafts, Garrett quickly established himself as a consensus candidate to permanently reside in the absolute highest tier of defensive players. Selected with the very first overall pick in the NFL Draft for a clear and obvious reason, his remarkable ability to post seven sacks on a limited workload of just 520 snaps as a 21-year-old rookie signaled that he was ready to compete for All-Pro honors immediately. Evaluated by scouts as an even more polished and physically imposing prospect than Joey Bosa, Garrett arrived in the NFL as a confirmed athletic freak, standing 6-foot-4 and weighing 272 pounds, leaving astute talent evaluators with zero reason for caution regarding his professional outlook.
Even as a 21-year-old rookie adjusting to the speed of the professional game, Garrett immediately proved capable of standing out on Sundays. Beyond his imposing 6-foot-4, 272-pound frame, he boasted rare, defensive-back-like athleticism highlighted by a lightning-fast 4.64-second forty-yard dash, a towering 41-inch vertical leap, and an exceptional 128-inch broad jump. Complementing those explosive lower-body metrics was a massive wingspan featuring arms measuring over 35 inches. While the early-stage Cleveland rosters occasionally lacked the comfortable leads necessary to let Garrett completely loose purely as a pass rusher, his exceptional physical traits ensured he would consistently provide a solid baseline tackle total even in years where total sacks fell just short of double digits. From the moment he stepped foot on an NFL field, it was abundantly clear that the former Texas A&M superstar possessed the tools to surpass the legacy of previous top overall selections, firmly establishing his own unique standard of excellence in the trenches.
