NFL Insider Tom Pelissero on Whether Browns Got Enough in Myles Garrett Trade

Did the Cleveland Browns get enough for Myles Garrett? Tom Pelissero's answer was yes, and his reasoning had less to do with the headline numbers than with the math underneath them.

Start with the market. Pelissero pointed out the Browns did not have eight teams lined up for a player like Garrett. They had one real bidder, the Los Angeles Rams. Within that reality, he liked the return, anchored by edge defender Jared Verse.

"If you just traded Jared Verse tomorrow, he would be a one-plus player," Pelissero said, the kind of 24-year-old ascending edge who would cost a first-round pick and more on his own. Count Verse as roughly a first and a third, add the rest of the package, two first-round picks plus two thirds plus a second, and Pelissero made his point to everyone who wanted three first-rounders.

"It kind of was," he said. "If you add it up, and if you hit on these picks, it's just in a different form." The bonus, he noted, is that the Browns do not have to sweat whiffing on one of those firsts, because Verse is already a proven, highly entertaining difference-maker who fits the vibe in Cleveland.

For the Rams, Pelissero framed it bluntly. The trade lives or dies on one question. Does Garrett help Los Angeles win a Super Bowl this year? If not, the season is a disappointment, and with Matthew Stafford very much year-to-year, the window is now.

The Browns are playing a longer game. Pelissero praised their 2025 draft haul as one of the league's best, from Mason Graham to Defensive Rookie of the Year Carson Schwesinger to Harold Fannin and an effective Quinshon Judkins. The unresolved piece is quarterback, where Shedeur Sanders has ascended this offseason and Deshaun Watson has played 19 games in five years. Asked who wins that battle, Pelissero guessed neither, given the situation.

That is where his favorite thread emerged. What if the Browns use the Rams' 2027 first, perhaps packaged with their own, to climb up for a franchise quarterback? He sketched a 2028 or 2029 Browns team that is finally competitive, a leap he admitted is tough to picture but not impossible for a club that reached the playoffs twice in six years under Kevin Stefanski.

The wildest wrinkle ties two franchises together. The Rams spent the 13th pick on quarterback Ty Simpson rather than loading up for this Super Bowl push, betting on their future. Then they dealt a first to Cleveland that could become the Browns' future quarterback.

"That is a fun connect-all-the-dots, figure out who committed the crime style combination," Pelissero said. He rattled off a loaded 2027 quarterback class, with Arch Manning possibly in it, plus Dante Moore, Brendan Sorsby, Julian Sayin, C.J. Carr and a bounce-back candidate in LaNorris Sellers.

His bottom line: the Garrett trade comes down to whether the Rams win it all right now, while the Browns are thinking big picture. The final verdict, he cautioned, may be a few years away.