Cleveland Browns superstar Myles Garrett has requested to be moved via a trade. So which NFL teams would get the biggest boost from acquiring him? We rank the top landing spots based on the largest team-rating increase.
How good of a pass rusher is Myles Garrett? And how would acquiring someone like Garrett change the trajectory of a team?
Earlier this week, Garrett sent shockwaves through radio row in New Orleans ahead of Super Bowl 59 when the superstar edge rusher announced he’s made a trade request from the Cleveland Browns.
Garrett even reportedly consulted with future Hall of Fame basketball player LeBron James before making his decision.
It’s not every day that a four-time All-Pro and NFL Defensive Player of the Year becomes available, though Browns general manager Andrew Berry, for now, said they’re “not entertaining offers for him.”
But accolades and reputation often say one thing about a player while the data indicates something else.
How Good of a Pass Rusher is Garrett?
In an attempt to quantify Garrett’s ability, we can use our method of evaluating pass rushers through tracking true 1-on-1 matchups between a pass rusher and pass blocker. That does not include stunts and twists or scheme cross-ups. Instead, what we’re looking for is situations in which a pass blocker and a pass rusher are both aware of who they are matched up against and who they need to beat.
We’re not going to make you wait any longer – Garrett finished the 2024 regular season with a 1-on-1 win rate of 63%. How good is that? The average edge rusher in the NFL wins about 26% of the time. Insert mind-blown emoji here.
There’s more to the story, though. Win rate alone isn’t enough. Aidan Hutchinson of the Detroit Lions had a higher win rate this season before getting hurt, and his rate was buoyed by a Week 1 matchup against the third-string tackles of the Los Angeles Rams.
So how do you adjust for strength of competition when attempting to describe a pass rushers true ability, rather than describing historical performance? Enter our ELO ratings.
Our ELO model assigns a rating to each player. At the beginning of a data set, every player has the same rating. Based on these ratings, each 1-on-1 matchup has an expected result. If two players have the same rating, each is expected to win 50% of the time. If there’s a 100-point difference in the ratings, the higher player is expected to win about 64% of the time.
In our Hutchinson example, Rams tackle A.J. Arcuri has an ELO rating of around 1200 and Hutchinson’s is 1600. A 400-point difference means that we expect Hutchinson to win about 90% of the time. If Hutchinson had been facing Rashawn Slater instead, we would have expected him to only win about 30% of his matchups.
A new rating is calculated after each matchup based on how a player performed versus expected. If you are expected to win 90% of the time and you win, your rating goes up, but not by much. If you’re expected to win 30% of the time and you win, you get a much-larger ratings increase. This is why looking only at win rate can be misleading. A player who wins 3 of 8 matchups against Slater had a better performance than a player who wins 7 of 8 against a typical third-string tackle.
What is Garrett’s ELO rating? It’s 1689, which is 80 points better than Micah Parsons of the Dallas Cowboys in second. Only three left tackles in the NFL (Slater, Tristan Wirfs of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Christian Darrisaw of the Minnesota Vikings) would be expected to beat Garrett more than half the time.
The average starting left tackle in the NFL has an ELO around 1550, so lining him up and expecting him to block Garrett 1-on-1 would be, well, a bad idea. Garrett is going to win that matchup 70% of the time, and that is not conducive to a functional offense.
In Week 3 against the New York Giants, Garrett had 15 1-on-1 matchups with left tackle Andrew Thomas. Thomas is considered to be one of the NFL’s best left tackles, and our numbers bear that out. He finished this season as the 10th-best pass blocking left tackle in the league and an ELO of 1575.
In that game, Garrett won 8 of 15 matchups, or 53%. At the time of the game, the two players had nearly identical ELO ratings. Thomas’ was slightly higher and coming into the game we would have expected Garrett to win about 48% of the time. He overperformed, but only by little. All this is to say, Garrett is so good that Thomas, among the best left tackles in the league, winning half his 1-on-1s against him in Week 3 is actually a pretty good performance.
How Much Would Garrett Improve His New Team?
That leads us to the next question we raised early on: What happens if Garrett gets traded? And related, how does that affect both the Browns and whatever team Garrett is shipped to.
Our team ratings identify seven aspects of each team: QB, pass block, run block, pass rush, run defense, skill players and pass coverage. Other than QB, each of these is built from individual player ratings, weighted by position, and aggregated to a unit rating. Edge rushers are the highest weighted position when it comes to pass rush, accounting for around 52% of all 1-on-1s while interior defensive linemen are at about 36%.
With Garrett, the Browns defense heads into the offseason with the third-best pass-rushing unit in the NFL with a collective ELO of 1316. Only the Detroit Lions (1338) and Pittsburgh Steelers (1330) rank higher. If we remove Garrett from the Browns, they fall to the eighth-best unit at 1271.
Cleveland’s other pass rushers are productive in their own right with Isaiah McGuire and Ogbo Okoronkwo and the interior duo of Shelby Harris and Mike Hall Jr. So not a huge drop because we’re adjusting for a potential injury. As it is, it’s a 0.8-point dip (think of these like spread values), though if we know for certain that Garrett is going to stay healthy in 2025, it would be a 1.3 drop.
Which teams would get the biggest boost from acquiring Garrett? We’ll rank the top potential landing spots based on the largest team-rating increase with Garrett on board. One thing to note: We’re looking at rosters without any presumed signings, so Khalil Mack is a free agent and not a member of the Los Angeles Chargers.
The Top Landing Spots for Garrett
1. Los Angeles Chargers (+1.4 Points)
So if the Chargers were previously a 1.4-point underdog, adding Garrett would make the game even. Los Angeles heads into the offseason with the worst projected pass rush in the NFL. Mack is a free agent, and the remaining pass rushers are not inspiring. Joey Bosa was a below-average pass rusher in 2024 (ELO of 1170) and a return to form would be welcome, but injuries have started to take a toll.
The other returning edge players are Bud Dupree (1071), Tuli Tuipulotu (1237) and Caleb Murphy (1224). It’s not a perfect scheme fit, but you fit the scheme around someone like Garrett.
2. Atlanta Falcons (+1.3)
The Falcons are currently projected for the 26th-best pass rush in the NFL, and they’re 31st among only edge players. Their best pass rusher this season was Kaden Ellis, who started at middle linebacker. Ellis had a win rate of 56% when he was given a chance to rush, but it isn’t great when your best pass rusher is an off-ball linebacker.
There is some unknown with Bralen Trice, who rated high in our college football ELO ratings last year. He missed his entire rookie season and we’re not sure how well his college production will translate. Adding Garrett would take the Falcons from 26th to third in our pass-rush rankings, and with the return to a 4-3 base defense, Garrett will slide into a role he’s thrived in lately.
3. Detroit Lions (+1.1)
With Za’Darius Smith in the fold, the Lions are already projected to have the best rush in the league as they focus on winning a Super Bowl next season. But that does depend on the health of Hutchinson and Alim McNeill.
Adding Garrett to an already elite unit would be a nightmare for the rest of the NFC, and hurried throws against a pair of ball-hawking safeties would lead to boatloads of turnovers. This might be the most fun option.
Highest 2024 ELO Rankings Among Defensive Ends
4. Washington Commanders (+1.1)
A starting front of Garrett, Da’Ron Payne, Jonathan Allen and Dorance Armstrong would be among the best in the league, enough to move Dan Quinn’s club from having the 10th-best projected pass rush to the third.
Yes, the Commanders have Jayden Daniels on offense. But they have tons of holes to fill on defense and only 19 defenders under contract for next season. With big holes at corner and linebacker, a move for Garrett might be getting ahead of things too much.
5. Chicago Bears (+1.1)
New Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen loves huge defensive linemen, and Garrett is certainly that. Adding another expensive pass rusher across from Montez Sweat might be a bit of a luxury though, especially considering the state of the offense.
With the entire interior of the offensive line in question as well as one starting receiver spot (Keenan. Allen is a free agent), the Bears might focus their resources on that side of the ball while adding some low-cost options to shore up the defensive interior.
6. Arizona Cardinals (+0.9)
The Cardinals currently have an edge group of BJ Ojulari (1231), Xavier Thomas (1180), Zaven Collins (1231) and Vi Jones. Considering the average ELO for an edge rusher is 1275, the Cardinals, like the Chargers, do not have an above-average edge rusher on the roster. Adding Garrett would improve their pass rush to 12th in the league, up from 31st.
The downside is the Cardinals have many needs on the defensive front. A boost of only 0.9 points is a good indication that their pass rush needs more than just a single addition, even if that addition is Garrett.
Opta Analyst’s Jordan Collins contributed to this story.
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