Myles Garrett To Minnesota Just Doesn’t Make Sense
Credit: Jeffrey Becker via Imagn Images
At first glance, the math is incredibly easy. The Minnesota Vikings went 14-3 in the regular season, only to fall flat on their face for two reasons: they couldn’t protect their own quarterback or get to their opponents’. Four-time All-Pro Myles Garrett gets to quarterbacks all the time, but is demanding a trade from the Cleveland Browns because they went 3-14 in a season where, no kidding, they actually had Super Bowl aspirations. Minnesota has all the cap space, while Cleveland has none. Come on, this should be a match made in heaven.
Except… it isn’t. Look, anyone saying Garrett couldn’t help the Vikings is an idiot. Garrett could help all 32 teams. The guy has averaged 15 sacks per 17 games ever since he stepped into the NFL, while the Vikings, despite their impressive sack numbers, had difficulties getting pressure consistently. Garrett had 83 pressures by himself last season, per PFF, which tied for third in the NFL. Combine him with Jonathan Greenard (second with 84 pressures), and we’re cooking.
So why wouldn’t that work out for the Vikings? The answer is less about Garrett, or even his cap hit, and more about the team’s window. Under Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, the Vikings have been geared towards creating an extended window for the team to compete. It’s why they ditched Kirk Cousins and are likely to jettison Sam Darnold to start the J.J. McCarthy Era in the near future. The dream of an extended window is why the Vikings drafted a 21-year-old freakish athlete like Dallas Turner instead of the 23-year-old, plug-and-play Jared Verse. That’s why they moved on from a 30-year-old sure thing in Danielle Hunter and rolled the dice on a 27-year-old Greenard’s one breakout year.
It’s been about youth, upside, and staying power. Now, few defenders have had more staying power than Garrett. He just turned 29 in December, and his track record is flawless. That said, how much longer is this elite production — which Minnesota would be trading for and relying upon — going to last?
A typical Garrett season is about 14.0 sacks, which correlates to the top 50 seasons we’ve seen from edge rushers since 2010. In the last decade and a half or so, we can see that sacks are a young man’s game. Just nine of the 53 players with 14.0 or more sacks did so after the age of 30. The oldest representatives on the list are Robert Mathis (19.5 sacks in 2013) and Khalil Mack (17.0 sacks in 2023), who had their last great years at age 32.
Sure, Garrett is a freak, but this is a list of the top sack-getters in the NFL — they’re all freaks. Some of these players went on to play effective football for a long time (Calais Campbell, for example, is still a solid player at age 38), but if you’re talking about the elite, electrifying talent that can single-handedly jump a team up a tier on the list of Super Bowl contenders… Well, Garrett’s probably got a year or two left of that. Maybe three, if the team that trades for him is lucky.
You might argue that the Vikings should still take that Faustian bargain, given that stars like Greenard, Justin Jefferson, and Christian Darrisaw are in-house, elite, and ready to contend. But if that move happens, the second the Vikings’ window closes, it’s going to slam hard in their face.
Minnesota already doesn’t have draft picks. They have their first-rounder, two fifth-rounders, and very likely a third-round compensatory pick. The team has already spent so much draft capital moving up for Turner and McCarthy, and trading for Garrett eats further into the Vikings’ future. Even supposing the Browns are high on Turner, Minnesota’s first-round pick and Turner has to be the floor for a package going back to Cleveland. And it likely won’t end there.
All of that might not be enough to stop Kwesi from doing this trade, but the Kirk Cousins Equation might. That is — do you solve your needs by investing heavily in a premium position, or do you spread the wealth around? Not spending big dollars on their quarterback, the most important position in sports, allowed them to invest in edge rushers like Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel. Look how that worked out.
And remember what we said up top: Greenard is already an elite pass-rusher. Maybe you don’t call him quite Garrett-tier, but he’s great enough. Van Ginkel offers pass-rushing ability and much more utility in coverage, while Turner should be counted on to take a step next year.
Where are the Vikings weak? Almost everywhere else on defense. Their interior linemen can stop the run, but they can’t generate pressure up the middle. Garrett isn’t going to be that threat in the middle of the line. And while Garrett and Greenard both bearing down on a quarterback from the edges is scary as hell, when a quarterback gets rid of the ball quickly, the Vikings’ cornerbacks can be exploited. Maybe not every game, but Jared Goff did it once and Matthew Stafford did it twice, and that was the end of the season.
Now, if the Vikings ignore all of the reasons not to make a Garrett trade and do it anyway, sure, that’ll be exciting. There’d be reservations about what happens in, say, 2027 and beyond, but you can’t deny that there’d be buzz. Still, that’s an all-in move, one that is most appropriate for an aging team with a closing window. If this was something a team like the 2008 Vikings could do in conjunction with landing Brett Favre for the 2009 run? Absolutely. Or if the 2018 Vikings could make that move in an offseason where they already went all-in on Cousins, that’s a home run.
But despite being a 14-3 team last year, the 2025 Vikings are more than an aging, yet elite pass-rusher away from getting to the Super Bowl. They have a plan in place to contend and a young core led by the mythical top QB prospect on a rookie contract. It’s best for Minnesota if they stick with that instead of chasing a year or two of excellence with Garrett.
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