The Los Angeles Rams did not acquire Myles Garrett to watch him recover on the sideline. They sent Cleveland a package that included Jared Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-rounder and a 2029 third-round selection because they believed a two-time Defensive Player of the Year could tilt their pass rush and their season.
A few months later, that bet looks more expensive than anyone in Thousand Oaks wanted to admit.
Garrett passed his physical after the June trade. The Rams did their work.
Then training camp started and a left knee issue surfaced. Sean McVay described him as roughly 85 percent and said the club was being careful with a player who had not missed much time in years.
Careful turned into something more serious.
Garrett still took the field in the season opener against San Francisco in Australia and did not look like the force that had just left Cleveland. Soon after, he needed surgery. The early hope was a four-week return. That hope is gone.
Sources now put his recovery closer to six weeks, via ESPN’s Ian Rapoport, which would keep him out until around Week 9 and possibly into November. Rapoport added that Los Angeles was even being cautious with the six-week timeline.
The Rams already placed him on injured reserve. McVay’s staff has long treated the regular season as a long grind rather than a sprint, but paying that kind of draft capital for a defender who may miss the first half of the year is a different kind of grind.
The front seven that was supposed to feast with Garrett next to the existing pieces has instead been asked to generate pressure without the player who was meant to finish plays.
None of this is an indictment of the medical staff or of Garrett himself.
The timeline is what it is, and he has already said he intends to beat it. That determination matters in a locker room that has watched stars work through setbacks before.
It does not, however, change the math of September and October. Every week he is out is a week the Rams cannot use the player they surrendered so much to get.
From a Rams perspective, the trade still has a long runway. A healthy Garrett in November and December is a different proposition than a healthy Garrett in September.
The question hanging over SoFi is whether the defense can stay competitive long enough for that version to arrive.
Cleveland may be waiting on Verse to produce sacks. Los Angeles is waiting on something larger: proof that the biggest swing of the offseason was not merely delayed, but still worth the wait.
