Winners and Losers From the Biggest Day of the NFL Offseason

Conor Orr sifts through all the ripple effects of the Myles Garrett and A.J. Brown trades, Russell Wilson’s retirement and more.

Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown are no longer teammates after one of Monday’s two big trades. | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

As most football-loving Americans woke up on Monday morning expecting a resolution in the long-discussed A.J. Brown trade, they were served a curveball: Myles Garrett, one of the greatest defensive players in NFL history, was sent to the Rams for Jared Verse and first-, second- and third-round picks in 2027, 2028 and 2029, respectively. Garrett is 30, coming off a historic season in which he became the NFL’s single-season sack king, and the impact is seismic. 

Garrett is a clear upgrade over Verse in the immediate future (despite Verse offering more upside) and represents another brilliant gambit by GM Les Snead and coach Sean McVay at capitalizing on established veteran talent. Meanwhile, the Browns lean deeper into a strategy that began, in earnest, the year before Garrett was drafted by the franchise. Perhaps after a decade, the continued infatuation with acquiring draft equity will pay off in the form of a sustainable and competitive football team. 

Oh, and then the Brown trade happened. New England acquired the former Mike Vrabel first-round pick for a 2028 first-round selection and 2027 fifth-round pick. Drake Maye, in an attempt to run back his MVP candidacy for another season, has been handed a dominant receiver who can control smaller defensive backs, block when motivated and serve as the red zone menace New England desperately needs. 

As with any deals, there are grades, takes and stakes. But only the truly big deals and the days on which big deals take place (June 1 also see big-name free-agent signings and a notable retirement), are there winners and losers. Let’s sift through them together. 

WINNERS

Andrew Berry

The Browns’ general manager has a unique job that provides him with a massive runway to experiment, try and fail. What he has been skilled at—of course outside of the worst trade in NFL history—has been making the kinds of moves that are rigorously defensible from an analytical perspective. This is absolutely another one of those examples. The Browns received a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-round pick and a 2029 third-round pick. Cleveland almost certainly weights these picks differently than the scales more commonly used to place a numerical value on draft picks, but when considered as I’m about to explain, Cleveland got a large return for a 30-year-old player. 

If the Rams have the 32nd pick in the 2026 draft (a value of 590 on the famed Jimmy Johnson trade value chart) the second- and third-round picks equal about a middle-of-the-round second-round pick. Then Verse, who would likely fetch a first-round pick in addition to more mid-round capital, pushes the overall compensation to something one could label as very close to three first-round picks in total compensation. This would obviously leapfrog the Packers’ package to Dallas despite the fact that Micah Parsons is theoretically in his athletic prime, while Garrett will turn 31 this season. 

My one rub with the deal is something smart I saw brought up by Jason Fitzgerald at Over the Cap: Garrett will provide elite football for at least the next two years at $40 million per season and an incredibly low base salary. Verse, meanwhile, has what is likely to be one more season of his rookie contract before it necessitates an extension that will pay Verse more per year than Garrett, given that most of these contracts follow a kind of leapfrogging formula. And Cleveland, in making Verse the centerpiece of the return for Garrett, would look wholly foolish if it doesn’t keep him long enough to warrant an extension. 

Sean McVay and Chris Shula

As detailed in my immediate Garrett reaction column, the Rams have been handed one of the rarest entities in football: a player who makes the opposing side predictable. Garrett gives his team an incredibly accurate picture of where an offense is going to run the ball (away from Garrett), where they are going to pass protect (toward Garrett) and how many people the offense is going to use to stop Garrett (at least two). That also tells them how many receivers an offense has left to deploy (not many) and how often it needs a running back to stay in for added protection, further limiting receivers (while likely prolonging the time a quarterback needs to stay in the pocket for one of his few wide receivers to spring open). When placed in the hands of any coach, it is a gift. When placed in the hands of McVay and Shula, it is an advantage that will change the balance of power in the NFL. 

Drake Maye

Maye has been excellent against man coverage and got even better in 2025. But I think the story is between the lines. The teams that Maye will need to get past in 2026 to return to the Super Bowl are also excellent at man coverage. The Texans, while only employing a 20% man coverage rate, really like to bring it on critical downs. The Jets, a divisional opponent, play a ton of man coverage relative to the rest of the NFL. Conference stalwarts like the Steelers, Broncos, Bengals and Ravens (albeit with a new coach and coordinator) play a lot of man defense. And Maye got perhaps the best wide receiver in the NFL against that particular defense. Brown is first in both receptions and yards against man looks since 2022. 

The Ty Simpson of right now

In understanding that the decision to trade for Garrett does not happen in a flicker of impulsivity, it is likely—and both Jay Glazer and our Albert Breer intimated as much on Monday—that the Rams knew enough about acquiring Garrett to understand that keeping their 2027 first-round pick was almost certainly off the table, which meant having to get a quarterback of the future now. Any momentary frustration from Rams fans over the Simpson acquisition has long been washed away given that other available draft capital went toward Garrett and Trent McDuffie. Simpson can now enjoy (given the recent Matthew Stafford extension) a two-year window of preparation before he has to log significant NFL snaps. He also will not be blamed passively for being the reason the Rams couldn’t upgrade enough this offseason.

Matthew Stafford

I can’t remember a more pacified quarterback of the past 25 years. The Rams were drafting his successor and pretended to be angry about it, much to the detriment of the poor kid getting selected. Then, he got signed to a contract extension, putting him second in the NFL in average per year salary. Then, to maximize those two seasons, Stafford was given Garrett. All of this when considering that, at this time a year ago, the Rams had just finished allowing Stafford to seek a trade and then watched as his back deteriorated to the point where he needed a special recovery trailer.

Chloe Kim

Kim, the international snowboarding star and three-time Olympic medalist, who was born in Long Beach, Calif., now eyes a potential future living in or around Los Angeles as opposed to … checks notes … Pepper Pike, Ohio, which offers … checks notes again … options for “upscale bowling” and a location that is just a 25 minute drive from the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame! Talk about an upgrade for Kim’s boyfriend.

Will Campbell

As the confetti fell on the Seahawks’ Super Bowl victory, I think Campbell was shaping up to be the unfortunate offseason storyline in New England after he—and really, the entire Patriots offense—had a bad game against a defensive line that already knew his tendencies and had an incredible game plan to exploit it. Well, after the head coach scandal and the Brown trade, Campbell and his development slots into a comfortable No. 3 position in terms of what Patriots fans are tracking. In all seriousness, Brown’s arrival likely means a heavier investment in play-action. Maye had about 30% of his snaps in play-action last year, which, while asking an offensive lineman to hold a block longer, also tends to help offensive linemen because of the run action misdirecting a defender. Campbell’s advanced analytics usually took a dive on snaps where “true pass sets,” which were non-play-action plays, were isolated. 

The Giants

On a day where the Giants signed Braxton Berrios, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Odell Beckham Jr., the implications of those moves and what they might tell us about Malik Nabers’s recovery may have been a much larger story. The Giants have a combustible feel right now, although much of that may be due to the relative quiet of this offseason and the political nature of the team’s most significant disturbance. Still, Nabers’s injury and recovery have much to do with how we’ll measure confidence in John Harbaugh, Jaxson Dart and the whole operation. 

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Kyle Shanahan’s path through the NFC West and into the Super Bowl once again just got harder. | Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images

LOSERS

The 49ers

Generally, of course, but specifically in this way: The 49ers are actually one of the few teams adequately set up to deal with a pass rusher like Garrett, given that so many of their skill-position players are good blockers. However, because San Francisco begins the season in Australia, there is almost no way the 49ers can responsibly fly George Kittle 15 hours away as Kittle is in the throes of an Achilles rehab. So, the 49ers have to face the Rams in a critical divisional matchup that could have immense consequences for end of season seeding and playoffs without a player who could very well help minimize Garrett’s ability to affect a game. I did not think there was a way Kyle Shanahan could hate Melbourne any more. I’ve since changed my mind. 

Jalen Hurts

A.J. Brown was an incredible security blanket for Hurts during their time together. On average, about 25% of Brown’s targets from Hurts over the past two years were considered “tight-window” throws. In 2024, Brown had a plus-10.8% catch rate over expectation. Similarly, Brown’s strengths were downplayed by those looking at more boilerplate “advanced” statistics because a fair number of Brown’s targets turned out to be deep-ball throwaways that were simply assigned to Brown. When Brown was targeted, he still behaved mostly like a dominant, game-altering wide receiver who can command a serious advantage in man coverage. All that said, Hurts is now alone on his island in terms of blame. The offensive coordinator is gone. The receiver who helped build Hurts into this monolith is gone. What’s left is truly emblematic of how valuable Hurts can be to the Eagles moving forward.

Any other major cause, business or sports league trying to occupy space on the calendar

The NFL has now planted a flag on June 1 as a possible blockbuster afternoon, as it’s a day that allows teams to make trades that splice up the allocation of cap dollars. This after the successful commandeering of Valentine’s Day, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving Eve, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the late summer, all of fall and first six weeks of spring. The Knicks are in the NBA Finals, and the World Cup starts in two weeks. Just wait until Roger Goodell finds a way to steal your anniversary, too. 

Russell Wilson

I say this as someone who admires Wilson, but also can admit that Wilson would have very much liked this soft retirement day to have been a referendum on what has been an incredible, borderline Hall of Fame career. Instead, the worthy news that Wilson is the replacement for Matt Ryan on CBS (though he hasn’t officially closed the door on playing) was sandblasted off the face of our already zapped public attention span. It’s like when you’re planning an “A” outfit for the brunch and someone shows up in the Jennifer Lopez dress from the 2000 Grammys (even more surprising if it’s your good friend, Dave, who, surprisingly, pulls it off). Wilson will be great on television and, in all seriousness, I do think his body of work was another good season away from meriting consideration for the Hall. He’ll just have to attempt another day to secure his 15 minutes in the warm sun. 

The Ty Simpson of tomorrow

While I do not doubt Snead and McVay’s ability to restack the decks once it is time for Simpson to take over as the starting quarterback in 2028, the Rams will have to maintain an almost unprecedented run of NFL success to make it that far without much in the way of draft capital to help build the foundation. When you think about it, the Rams would have to essentially become the Bill Belichick–era Patriots and reinvent the team for a third time under the same head coach. New England did it with a terrible track record of drafting players who could fill the roster void, so I’m not saying it’s impossible. But the Rams must have an incredible amount of confidence in their processes to believe that Simpson won’t need elite talent to thrive off the bat. Of course, Simpson being on a rookie contract and the loss of Stafford’s salary from the books will mean Snead and McVay may go on an otherworldly spending spree in two years. And I’m here for that. 

Arch Manning

With the Jets’ division rivals acquiring Brown, and the Cardinals’ division rivals acquiring Garrett, and the Browns trading Garrett, the likelihood that one or all of these traditionally maligned franchises end up with the top pick is starting to solidify. Manning can certainly escape—there is a family blueprint. But it’s starting to look like another thorny runway for a Manning entering the professional ranks. How do you avoid the Browns, Cardinals and Jets to make your way to the Vikings? We’re about to find out. 

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