Myles Garrett skipped the start of the Browns’ offseason workout program last week, and the move immediately revived talk that the 30-year-old edge rusher could again be angling for a trade. Garrett reportedly forfeited $1 million by staying away, a costly absence that put his future back in the spotlight just months after he signed a four-year, $160 million extension to remain in Cleveland.
The timing mattered because Garrett is coming off a 23-sack season and the Browns have repeatedly framed him as the centerpiece of what they want to build. At the owners meetings, general manager Andrew Berry said Garrett “is a career Brown,” a message that matched the team’s public stance that it wants to keep him as a franchise cornerstone.
Last offseason, Garrett asked to be traded before eventually agreeing to that four-year deal, so the latest absence naturally invited the same questions again. But the workouts he missed were voluntary, and Browns offensive coordinator Todd Monken tried to cool the noise by saying, “First of all, as I’ve said before, this is voluntary for our players to be here,” before adding, “Myles will be ready. I’m not worried about Myles.”
That makes the trade chatter feel louder than the actual evidence. On Monday, Dan Graziano said on Get Up that he believes it is more likely Garrett gets another contract bump from the Browns this offseason than gets dealt, which would fit the pattern Cleveland has already shown: when the pressure rises, it has tried to pay up rather than move on. For now, Garrett’s absence says less about a coming breakup than it does about how quickly one missed voluntary workout can reopen a conversation Cleveland thought it had already settled.