Todd Monken Isn’t Worried About Not Speaking With Myles Garrett in Person Yet

The Cleveland Browns fired head coach Kevin Stefanski on January 5. What ensued was a roundabout of searching far and wide for a new leader for the franchise. While reports of Grant Udinski and Nate Scheelhaase being the frontrunners were wrong as Todd Monken ended up swooping in and landing the job on January 28th.

Former Cleveland defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was also deep in the running for the job, landing a second interview, and had the backing of the Browns' defensive unit. Cleveland’s top defender, Myles Garrett, also seemed to back Schwartz and was disappointed when he was not hired.

While it has been almost three months since Monken was hired, Monken has said that he still hasn’t spoken to Garrett in person yet.

"It's fine. This is voluntary. We're making a big deal out of this. We really are. It's voluntary," Monken said.

That is not to say that the two haven’t communicated whatsoever, though, as Monken expressed that Garrett and other players have been unbelievable with their communication.

Does this matter?

It is the offseason, and this report and speculation on it are most likely a non-story, unfortunately for Monken, he does not get to decide if people make a big deal out of it or not.

One thing that you can take from this is that Garrett was a huge fan of Schwartz, even posting the picture of a Popeyes worker looking exhausted after Monken was hired over his defensive coordinator.

With Schwartz commanding the defense, Garrett won two defensive player of the year awards, totaling 56 sacks in just three seasons, along with his record-breaking sack total last year. He has turned into the best defensive player in the league in those years, so you can understand why he might be a bit distraught with Schwartz out the door.

Monken also said that he is not sure if Garrett had met with new defensive coordinator Mike Rutenberg yet, either. Which could be more concerning, but again, we are still in the early parts of football season, and the draft is a couple of days away.

Voluntary minicamp started on Tuesday for the Browns. Garrett did not attend, but that news is not surprising, as we have seen the same occurrence in the past.

Not showing up to minicamp has not slowed down Garrett at all, though, there should be no concern that when the time comes for Garrett to turn it on, he will.

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