The Cleveland Browns Were Not Supposed To Take Myles Garrett With The First Overall Pick In 2017 Until One Coach Threatened The Front Office

In the 2016 season, the Cleveland Browns were under their new head coach, Hue Jackson, and general manager, Sashi Brown. They decided to trade back a bunch of times in the 2016 NFL Draft and took Baylor’s wide receiver Corey Coleman with their first pick, who became a huge bust.

The Cleveland Browns went 1-15 that season and ended up with the first overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. It came down to them taking two players at that spot, and it was down to the final hours before the Browns decided.

The Cleveland Browns Were Going To Take Mitch Trubiksy

North Carolina’s quarterback Mitch Trubisky was coming off a very lovely college season in 2016. There were a lot of reasons why the Browns could’ve picked the young quarterback, the big one being he was a Cleveland, Ohio, native growing up in Mentor, Ohio, which is a city outside of Cleveland, and how great of a story would that be to see the hometown kid come home and quarterback the team he grew up rooting for.

The Browns thought the North Carolina quarterback coming home would’ve been a great story because they were ready to take him with their first overall pick, not the star defensive end from Texas A&M named Myles Garrett.

Garrett was hands down the number one player in the class. For a Browns team that was so bad, it was about taking great players at that moment. The Browns had to take him. Luckily, defensive coordinator Gregg Williams stepped in and stopped the front office from taking the hometown quarterback.

Gregg Williams Stopped The Trubiksy Pick

Gregg Williams was on his Come Get Some Podcast with his son Blake Williams, who coached under his father in Cleveland, stating,” Up until two hours until the draft, was still in arguments in the draft room if it’s Myles or Mitch Trubiksy and finally. I’m going to say two and a half hours before. It looks like they are going to settle on Mitch Trubisky, and right on the two-hour mark, I said fellas. I understand that we talked the entire thing through. I just want to let everyone in here know I have a press conference after this and let them know about the conversations going on here about not taking Myles Garrett.”

Good thing the former defensive coordinator pretty much threatened the front office into taking Garrett because he has turned himself into the best defensive player in the NFL. Trubiksy was selected number two overall by the Chicago Bears but would be gone by his fifth season. He has been mostly a career backup ever since in Buffalo and Pittsburgh.