Jared Verse Gets The Bad News
Well I don’t think any of us woke up Monday, June 2nd, 2026, expecting to get nuked. Least of all poor Jared Verse. Remember this next time you have a bad Monday. Jared Verse was a rising star defensive player on a Super Bowl-caliber team, living it up in sunny southern California. The next day he discovers his team has sent him to work for the fucking Cleveland Browns. That’s an all-timer shit Monday. Garfield would be proud.
As is required in all trade events, we now must armchair-examine the result before anything has happened. Let’s start with the Rams first because that one is easy to understand.
The Rams are win-now. The window is open, and they want to crash through it harder than a Hollywood stuntman. Along with Trent McDuffie and Jalen Watson as the big secondary acquisitions and convincing Stafford to stick around for another season, the Rams are down bad. Last time they won a Super Bowl by having the best defensive player in the league on the roster and trading away a Jared. Now they’ve done it again.
This does make the Ty Simpson even more baffling. The Rams don’t seem to be trying to future proof the roster, they are present-proofing it. Spending #13 on a guy who shouldn’t see the field for at minimum a year is…confusing. Especially now, after shipping away valuable picks for the immediate future. But the given picks weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be.
Do I like this trade for LA? Hard not to. The Rams got better. Unless something catastrophic happens, I don’t see how they aren’t the instant SB favorites.
THE BROWNS!
I…also like this trade for Cleveland. Cleveland is in rebuild mode. Keeping Garrett on the roster might not make much financial sense, as he takes up a huge portion of the salary cap and after last year is living proof that non-QBs just can’t drag teams into relevance. Also, while we can’t say Garrett has lost any steps, he is now officially over the 30 line. Verse is younger, cheaper, and also a massive stud, albeit lesser. He’s a good investment for the future.
I think at this point the Browns are keeping Watson on for 2026 since they can finally cut him for a lower penalty next year. The worst contract in history may have claimed Garrett as its last victim. But retooling and tanking this season is fine and probably expected. The roster is a mess, and Sanders/Gabriel are both likely future backups but now you get another year to evaluate them. On top of that, the Browns get a 2027 first rounder, 2028 second rounder, and a 2029 third rounder. Good future investment assets. Now the Browns have to hope Stafford eats an Achilles’ tear or something so that 2027 first-rounder isn’t pick #30+.
I just hope no Browns are expecting to be happy this year. Of course if you are a Browns fan I’m not sure why you’d ever expect happiness to begin with.
AJ Brown also got traded a few hours later but thanks to the in-depth reporting of Diana Russini, we knew that was coming ages ago. Man, she really called that. What did she know?
Jared Verse now going to get emergency surgery on his knee to void the trade, ala what happened with Maxx Crosby.
I’m actually on the opposite end of the spectrum, if the Rams have been trying to get this thing done for awhile, and had a good inkling they’d have no first rounder next year, then spending the pick on Simpson makes SOME sense, with a giant asterisk. That asterisk being only *IF* they are all actually in on him and wanted him, and the weird display on draft night was them just trying to remain subdued so as to show respect towards Stafford. Being all, “YAAAAAAA! WE GOT OUR GUY!” is a little awkward if the QB you just talked out of retirement is still there.
We know Stafford had back issues, despite the devil magic they used to make it go away, and we know he is on the verge of retiring. You can’t just not have an ascension plan, and if you know you’re trading away first round picks, then this draft represented – if things work out the way they want – the ONLY time they would have an even remotely high pick for a while. Using it on a QB isn’t the worst thing they could have done. Again, this is on the assumption that they were all in on him and didn’t feel some other guy at that spot wouldn’t have been able to come in and contribute more immediately. If McVay didn’t want this guy, or some other shenanigans went on behind closed doors, then forget everything I just said.
But if Simpson sits for a year or two under Stafford, and then becomes good? Maybe the Rams win a Super Bowl (or two) in the process? Then the Rams’ window can stay open for a few extra years. Garrett is living evidence that it doesn’t matter how good the player. You need a QB to compete.
Yeah, that’s my read on it too. The Rams figured that, unless things went completely tits up, they wouldn’t have a pick as low as 13 (and you need a lot lower to get a no-doubt QB) until like 2030, because they were gonna fuck aaaaaall them picks.
So, take Simpson now, have him QB a clipboard under a mature and understanding Stafford, and maybe pull a Packers.
Can’t fault the Rams for wanting to go for it. They have the roster and Garrett may put them over the edge, unfortunately.
Go Knicks!
My perfect chaos scenario is that Monken somehow turns Taylen Green into our QB1. I couldn’t give a crap less what happens to Watson, Sanders might have a little something, and Dillon Gabriel is just waiting to be traded to Atlanta. The AFC North needs a Lamar Jackson clone.
As a natural pessimist when it comes to my sports teams I’m fearing an injury that derails us from being Super Bowl Champs. With that said, on paper this is an obvious win-win; Verse is a pass rusher who better fits any possible window the Browns could have and has been great enough to maybe garner multiple firsts if he was traded right now on his own, and Garrett obviously makes the Rams the heavy favorites to win at least this upcoming season.
I think the Ty Simpson pick is basically a question of “do the Rams think they will have any chance to get a better QB in the next 2-3 draft classes” and by picking up Garrett it feels like they’re confidently saying they will not. Could turn out poorly but I understand the logic, better than can be said about the Cardinals.
Jared Verse: I love you Sean.
Sean McVay: I love Myles Garrett.
Needs a Yaoi tag
When are the Browns not in rebuild mode?
It’s hard not to feel for Verse. Playing for the Browns is a career death sentence.
Jared Verse is getting the Jamie Collins experience, only Collins deserved it for dissing Muffins.
I don’t get why the Rams are getting clocked as instant Super Bowl favorites. Yes, they almost made it last year but I never felt like they were the team to go. Did people pigeonhole the fact that they almost got knocked out in the first round by sub-500 Carolina? The fact that the bipolar Bears hung in there? People talk about how the Seahawks lost the first round due to Darnold’s 5 picks, but I looked and they were only a missed field goal at the end away from winning, which just speaks to how well Macdonald coached that team.
Sean McVay in general I feel is quite an overrated coach. He’s good, but he never strikes me as anything more than a decent executer. I went looking, and apparently subpar special teams has been pretty consistent throughout McVay’s run, baring his first year and the Super Bowl run ( https://www.turfshowtimes.com/los-angeles-rams-analysis/132385/rams-special-teams-issues-go-deeper-than-chase-blackburnra ).
They’re a team that’s always good but never good enough, I feel; even their Super Bowl run was dangerously close to capsizing at a lot of points. Every run afterward has always ended with them just barely missing the mark against teams they probably should’ve beat (Lions, Eagles), which tracks with how much they rely on talent to coast (weren’t injuries the thing that killed them in 2022?). As we’ve seen with the Packers and Eagles, if you don’t switch up your coaching, talent can only do so much.
All this to say, yes, this does make sense for the Rams, but people are seriously overlooking how easily this team can fall apart if things don’t go their way. They absolutely can make another run, but they wouldn’t be my first pick.