Ex-Pro Bowl OT Terron Armstead: Rams Can Go 17-0 with Myles Garrett

Terron Armstead has blocked Myles Garrett, studied him, and now he is ready to crown the team that just acquired him. The former Pro Bowl tackle told Rich the Rams adding Garrett is not an overreaction. It is a coronation.

How far is he willing to take it? All the way. With Garrett in the fold, Armstead sees no reason a healthy Rams roster does not go undefeated and chase the 1972 Dolphins as the only team to finish a perfect season. The lone caveat is durability. If everyone stays upright, he said, this is a 17-0 team.

When Rich floated Aaron Donald returning on top of it, Armstead waved it off as overkill. But he did walk through the nightmare of game-planning for Garrett, painting the only viable recipe against a Rams team like this: win the run game, lean on defense and special teams, and never fall behind. The moment you trail and have to drop back to pass, he said, you have already lost. Plain and simple.

The stat that crystallized it came from Armstead's own morning research. He had asked the crew at Good Morning Football to pull how many times in his entire career Garrett has played with a lead of a touchdown or more. The answer was eight games. Eight, across his whole career. Now pair him with the league MVP and Sean McVay's offense, and Armstead expects Garrett to play with a lead nearly every week, possibly matching that career total by Game 9. The pass-rush reps that follow, with opponents forced to throw to catch up, will only multiply.

Armstead knows the terror personally, and his word for blocking Garrett was, of all things, fun. He pointed to a 2018 battle between his Saints and the Browns that he calls a top-five offensive-line-versus-defensive-line clash, the kind of tape that belongs in the curriculum at the University of Football. For the record, Armstead won the matchup and says he shut Garrett out, though never easily and never without help from the scheme.

The detail that lingers is how early the respect started. Sean Payton's scouting reports color-coded opponents by tier, with red reserved for the best in the league. Garrett was already red by his second or third year, which annoyed Armstead at the time. How is he red already, he remembered thinking. Payton's answer was simple: Garrett is the best in the league, and you had better pay attention.

By now, Armstead figures, red does not even cover it. Garrett, he and Rich agreed, has graduated to gold, the first-ballot kind.