Browns Traded Myles Garrett to the Rams, Hired 60-Year-Old Todd Monken, and Still Haven't Picked a Starting Quarterback

The Cleveland Browns finished 2025 dead last in the AFC North at 5-12, averaging a league-worst 16.4 points per game with three different starting quarterbacks. That kind of season gets people fired. It got head coach Kevin Stefanski fired after six years on the job, and it set off the biggest roster teardown in Cleveland in years.

The headline move: Cleveland traded two-time Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams. In return, the Browns got pass rusher Jared Verse and draft capital, according to Fox News. Trading a player of Garrett's caliber is the kind of decision that ends careers if it goes wrong. Fox News called it a good trade for Cleveland, noting the return brought both immediate talent and future assets. Not everyone in the building has fully sold the fanbase on it, though.

To replace Stefanski, the Browns hired Todd Monken, the 60-year-old former offensive coordinator under John Harbaugh in Baltimore and Kirby Smart at Georgia. Monken told Fox Sports this is likely his only shot at an NFL head coaching job, and he's the fourth man in league history to land his first NFL head coaching gig in his 60s. His pitch: decades of watching other coaches, including Smart, Harbaugh, and Dirk Koetter, taught him lessons a younger hire wouldn't have.

"If you'd have hired me six years ago or 15 years ago, you could've said 'Boy, he's a young up-and-comer,'" Monken told Fox Sports. "But I'm better now at 60 than I really would have been at 45, just because of all the coaches and players I've been around."

The Roster Overhaul

Cleveland didn't stop at the coaching staff and Garrett. The team signed offensive line help in guard Zion Johnson and center Elgton Jenkins, according to Fox News and WFMD. On defense, they added linebacker Quincy Williams and defensive tackle Kalia Davis, plus veteran edge rusher A.J. Epenesa to pair with Verse and Alex Wright.

On offense, the Browns stacked young skill talent: wide receiver Isaiah Bond, running backs Quinshon Judkins and Dylan Sampson, and veteran receiver Tylan Wallace, joining holdover Jerry Jeudy. Denzel Ward remains the anchor of the secondary.

WFMD's own analysis was blunt about the tradeoff: without Garrett, "the front seven lacks proven game-disrupting star power, leaving the defense reliant on scheme and discipline to hold up." Garrett wasn't just a good player. He was a singular game-wrecker, and no single addition replaces that on his own. Whether Verse, Wright, and Epenesa combine to make up the difference is an open question nobody can answer until the games start.

The Quarterback Question Nobody's Answered

Deshaun Watson is competing for the starting job against rookies Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel, and Monken has kept that competition open through camp despite what Fox News described as "uneven practice reps" and growing buzz around Sanders. Former NFL receiver Chad Ochocinco said on Fox News' broadcast that Watson will get a very short leash once the season starts, predicting a quick change if the offense stumbles in the first two weeks.

Monken hasn't named a Week 1 starter as of this writing, and no source confirms one. Cleveland enters the season with three quarterbacks who have combined for a shaky track record in Cleveland uniforms, and a coaching staff that hasn't committed publicly to any of them.

The Sweatshirt That Didn't Help

While the football decisions get debated on their merits, Browns assistant general manager Catherine Hickman created an unforced PR headache this week. She spoke to reporters wearing a sweatshirt reading "Los Angeles Made Me Do It" while answering questions about the Watson quarterback decision, according to Newsweek.

Given that Cleveland traded Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams, fans didn't take it well. The Browns podcast "The Dawgs" called the choice tone-deaf on social media, and fan reaction on X ranged from "you can't wear this sweatshirt" to "there's like a billion shirts that would've been better than this," per Newsweek. Nobody has suggested the message was intentional messaging about the trade itself, but the optics were bad enough that it became its own story separate from the football decisions.

None of the roster math or coaching philosophy gets tested until Cleveland opens its regular season against the Jacksonville Jaguars on September 13. That's when Monken has to actually name a starter, and when the Browns find out whether trading a two-time Defensive Player of the Year for draft capital and Jared Verse was, as Fox News argued, a smart rebuild move or a bet the front office will regret.