Ian RapoportNFL Network Insider
MGMike GarafoloNFL Network Insider
JBJudy BattistaNFL Network Insider
Transcribed from air. Cleveland runs twenty-two minutes of a forty-one-minute show,
then a Rams block, then the draft primer. Every item below was on the air within eight hours of the trade
call.
Myles Garrett is traded to the Rams for Jared Verse and three picks
Ian Rapoport · Reported 11:03 a.m. ET
Ian Rapoport
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:03 PM ET
Wolfe: Rap, start at the top. What are you hearing about how today happened?
Rapoport: The two sides talked Friday and then went quiet. They came back Saturday night. Agreed in principle before noon Sunday. The call to the league office was this morning.
Wolfe: Who called who?
Rapoport: Cleveland called. Both buildings tell me the same thing on that. My understanding is Les Snead asked the price in March and was told there wasn’t one.
Wolfe: And the price today?
Rapoport: Verse, a 2027 first, a 2028 second, a 2029 third. I do not believe there is any money going either direction. That is the whole trade.
| Cleveland receives | Los Angeles receives |
|---|
Jared Verse, DE, 25
2027 first-round pick
2028 second-round pick
2029 third-round pick |
Myles Garrett, DE, 30 |
Cleveland processed the trade a day before the calendar would have split it
Mike Garafolo · Reported 6:40 p.m. ET
Browns side
Ian Rapoport
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:09 PM ET
League side
Mike Garafolo
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:14 PM ET
Wolfe: Mike, the timing. Why today and not tomorrow?
Garafolo: Because tomorrow is a different cap year for this purpose. A trade processed on or before June 1 accelerates every remaining dollar of Garrett’s prorated bonus into this season. Do it Tuesday and the league splits that charge, some now and the rest in 2027. Cleveland wanted all of it now. That is $21.3 million that will not be on next year’s books.
Wolfe: On top of what they are already carrying.
Garafolo: On top of $117.6 million from the Watson release in January, which is the largest single-player dead-money charge the league has recorded, past Tagovailoa’s $99.2 million. With Garrett added, Cleveland’s team number for 2026 is second in the league, behind Miami’s $182.29 million. It is not a team record and it keeps getting reported as one.
Wolfe: How do the picks convey?
Garafolo: Straight, all three, in the years stated. The Rams have their own first in 2027 and it goes to Cleveland wherever it lands, so the Browns hold two first-rounders that spring unless they move one. The second and the third are the same. No swap language, no deferral, and the paperwork went to New York this morning with the trade call.
Wolfe: Any protections?
Garafolo: None.
Clubs have asked the league office how Cleveland’s authority runs on paper
Judy Battista · Reported 5:55 p.m. ET
Judy Battista
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:21 PM ET
Wolfe: Judy, what are you hearing at the league level tonight?
Battista: Two things, and they are separate. The first is that clubs have been asking since the winter how the authority in Cleveland is written, because a head coach with final say over the roster is not unusual in itself and a first-year head coach with final say is unprecedented, and there is no file at the league office to point anybody at. The second is that this is the first transaction large enough to be read as evidence about it.
Wolfe: Is there anything in the rules that governs it?
Battista: No, and I want to be exact about that because it has been reported loosely elsewhere. A club may put final say wherever it wants. The competition committee has no jurisdiction over a front-office chart and does not meet again until the fall. What is happening is informal. Two clubs asked Cleveland’s people at the spring meetings how the reporting lines work, and one asked in writing.
Wolfe: Has this happened before, a reigning Defensive Player of the Year moved?
Battista: I spent an hour on that this afternoon and I could not find one who was traded while holding the award. The nearest comparison anybody offered me was Khalil Mack in 2018, and he was two years removed from his, and it happened in September rather than the first week of June. Chicago sent two first-round picks for him.
Nick Mansour says the decision was his
Ian Rapoport · Berea, Ohio · Reported 4:26 p.m. ET
Ian Rapoport
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:26 PM ET
Wolfe: Rap, Berea. What did the head coach say?
Rapoport: He stood up at four o’clock and took all of it. His words. He made the call, he made the recommendation upstairs, ownership approved it. Sixteen minutes, no notes.
Wolfe: Did Garrett ask to be traded?
Rapoport: I asked four people today. I could not confirm it either way and I am not going to guess on air. Nobody on either side will say who raised it first.
Garafolo: The thing I would add is procedural. Garrett’s representation has not issued anything, which on a trade this size is not what that side usually does. Los Angeles put a statement out at 11:40. Cleveland’s came at 11:12, four sentences, and there is no quote in it from the player or from anyone in Berea.
Wolfe: Judy, is there anything on the record?
Battista: One thing, and it is sixteen months old. On radio row before the Super Bowl in February of last year Garrett said he did not think he and the organization were aligned on where it was going, the club said then that it had no interest in trading him, and he went out and had the best season a defensive player has had in this league. Everything since has been private.
The Browns have told Jared Verse the defense will be built around him
Mike Garafolo · Reported 3:10 p.m. ET
Jared Verse · DE · 25
Defensive Rookie of the Year, 2024. Pro Bowl in each of his first two seasons. Florida State,
by way of UAlbany. Under contract through 2027.
Browns side
Ian Rapoport
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:31 PM ET
Rams side
Mike Garafolo
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:33 PM ET
Wolfe: What is Cleveland telling him?
Rapoport: That the front is being built to put him in one-on-ones. Mansour called him before the trade was filed, then called again this afternoon. Verse flies in Wednesday.
Garafolo: The contract is the other half of why Cleveland does this now. Verse is on rookie money through 2027 and the fifth-year option decision does not arrive until the spring of that year. Garrett’s cap charge in Los Angeles this season is more than four times what Verse is on, and the Rams took all of it without an adjustment.
Wolfe: And Los Angeles is done, or is that a first move?
Garafolo: They are into the top of their cap now, so anything else is small. What I am told is that the Rams have wanted a rusher of this order since the middle of last season and were in on two who never came available. Snead had a number for Garrett in March. Cleveland did not answer it until Friday.
Three teams asked about Denzel Ward and were told no
Ian Rapoport · Reported 2:48 p.m. ET
Browns side
Ian Rapoport
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:36 PM ET
League side
Mike Garafolo
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:38 PM ET
Wolfe: One more Cleveland name. Ward.
Rapoport: Three clubs called Berea within an hour of the Garrett news and all three asked about Denzel Ward. Cleveland said no to all three. I do not believe that is a permanent no.
Garafolo: The reason people keep asking is the contract. Ward signed two years and $62.2 million on January 2, from a general manager who was fired on the fifth, and it made him the highest-paid defensive back in the league for the second time. He turned 29 in April. The guarantee gets harder to move every month it sits. The deadline is November 10.
Wolfe: Has anybody in the building addressed it?
Rapoport: Asked twice today. Twice he said he is not going to discuss players who are on his team. That is the same answer he gave in February and in March.
Cleveland has not named a starting quarterback
Ian Rapoport · Reported 6:12 p.m. ET
Ian Rapoport
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:44 PM ET
Wolfe: And the quarterbacks. What are you hearing?
Rapoport: Nothing is decided. Sanders, Gabriel and the rookie, Taylen Green, have split the spring work three ways, and I mean evenly. Nobody in that building will give you a leader.
Wolfe: Do they expect to name one before camp?
Rapoport: They have not committed to naming one at all. Minicamp is next week. My understanding is the reps stay even through it.
Battista: The pick they got this morning lands in a draft most of this league already assumes Cleveland will spend at quarterback, they now hold two first-rounders that spring, and people have been connecting those two things on my phone since eleven o’clock. What a club official gave me this afternoon was that they will not discuss 2027 in June, which is normal and also the only answer anybody there gave today.
Garrett’s physical is scheduled for Tuesday morning in Los Angeles
Ian Rapoport · Reported 7:14 p.m. ET, during this broadcast
Ian Rapoport
NFL Network InsiderREPORTED 7:14 PM ET
Wolfe: We have something new in. Rap.
Rapoport: Just in. Garrett takes his physical in Los Angeles tomorrow morning. The trade is not official until it clears and the league processes it, and that is expected tomorrow afternoon.
Garafolo: One number to leave it on. There is a year of fully guaranteed salary left on the extension Garrett signed in March of last year, the Rams took all of it, and Cleveland is not sending a dollar with him. The charge in Cleveland is $21.3 million, all of it in 2026.
