Philly Front Office

The rumor mill is buzzing with Myles Garrett to the Eagles talk. My friend asked me if this was even possible. Let’s figure it out.

Eagles

Garrett is a superhero wearing a football costume in the Saquan Barkley and AJ Brown mold. I cannot express how absurd it would be to have him lined up next to Carter or Davis and opposite Nolan Smith. If you can only double team one, do you want it to be the previous DPOY or the next one? Have fun with that. He is a 4 time All Pro first teamer, all in the last 5 years. At 29 years old and with no real injury history, his appeal to the Eagles is clear.

Browns

They are saying they will not trade him, but that isn’t a real thing. What are the Browns holding on to? They have a Deshaun Watson sized crater on their roster the next three years and will basically just waste Garrett’s prime at this point. Keeping him is a crime against football. They need to bottom out and have the roster to do so without Garrett and pro bowler Denzel Ward.

What will it take for them to trade him? In 2018, the Chicago Bears traded two first round picks and a third for Khalil Mack and a second. Mack had been the DPOY two seasons earlier with two first team All Pro selections in his trophy case. He was 27 years old at the time. Myles Garrett has a longer resume but is also two years older. You have to think a similar trade is what gets this done.

Money

This is a two-part analysis because it involves both Garrett’s current contract and the one he is going to want from his new team. In 2020, Garrett signed an early extension for 5y/$125m. Due to bonuses, restructures, and void years, the deal still has a lot of cap hit left hanging. If the Browns trade him before June 1, so before the draft, they will have a cap hit of $36m. That’s $17m more than he counts already. They are currently $22m OVER the cap and need to get that down before March 12 (they will restructure Watson because they are F’d). They can do it, but that makes an already bad situation worse. If they wait until June 1, their current cap hit drops to $14m and $21m goes to next season.

A trading team does not have to give Garrett an extension. However, we all just saw what happened with Haason Reddick and the Jets. Howie Roseman is not stupid enough to do this. Somehow, despite signing that gargantuan contract, Garrett has been underpaid. In terms of AAV he is ranked 5th among EDGE rushers behind Joey Bosa (5/$170m), Josh Hines-Allen (5/$141m), Brian Burns (5/$141m), and TJ Watt (4($112m). All 4 were significantly younger than Garrett is now when they signed their deals. He is going to want to be the highest paid player at the position, and he deserves to be.

It is certainly possible that he takes a discount to be with the Eagles. Even a discount though is still making him the highest paid player at his position. 3 years, $103m would take him just over Bosa’s deal in terms of AAV. That’s the discount. If he wants a new jaw-dropper deal, we are talking 4/$160m or even the milestone 5/$200m already earmarked for Jalen Carter.

Now there are ways to make contracts appear as less on the books, at least in the near term. For Cap purposes, there are ways for the Eagles to get Garrett AND bring back Zack Baun AND bring back Isaiah Rodgers. Let’s say Garrett agrees to the 3-year deal above as an extension rather than a renegotiation and it comes with a $30m signing bonus and 4 void years. The carrot is that they guarantee the whole thing. His salary this year is basically $19m in the form of an Option Bonus. $5m is owed right away and the other $13m is due before the start of the season. Since his salary this year is just $13m and all but $1m is a bonus, on the low end the possible cap hit this season is only $5.25m ($42m/8 years). It will balloon like crazy after this season, but it makes everything possible for at least this year.

For the weirdos out there, they are going to do the same for Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith. I don’t want to go too far into the math, but their cap hits won’t balloon until after Garrett is gone. Howie knows what he is doing.

Will it happen?

Garrett does not have a no trade clause. The Eagles also do not have great draft picks (because they are so goddamn good!). Would the Browns accept two late first round picks? They will probably get better deals out there. Deals aren’t just on paper though. The player does have the ability to say that he will not sign an extension with certain teams. Garrett is under contract for 2 more seasons, but, again, Haason Reddick. It isn’t much leverage, but might be enough to stear the ship.

The Eagles are going to get comp picks next year from losing Sweat, Williams, Becton, and possibly Baun. These will all be third and fourth rounders. We also have an extra third next season thanks to the Reddick trade. The Eagles have the ammo to pull off the deal and not leave the cupboard bare if they want to. The trick will be doing the deal either before or after the draft. Technically, the Eagles could earmark their pick this year, sign the player, and then trade him to the Browns after June 1. That doesn’t happen very often though. Maybe they would rather have picks in the next two years, because a first can’t get much worse than from a Super Bowl Champion. We’ll see how much they care about that cap hit.

Verdict: Garrett is there for the taking if the Browns want to do the Mack deal with the Eagles.

(Big thanks to Spotrac.com and Overthecap.com)