How Myles Garrett pondered quitting football after Mason Rudolph, became a better man, and wants to clear the air with the QB
https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2020/09...ith-the-qb.htmlBy Mary Kay Cabot, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Myles Garrett had plenty of time alone to think during his indefinite suspension by the NFL for clubbing Mason Rudolph over the head with the QB’s helmet last season, and he contemplated quitting football.
"I did,'' the Browns defensive end said Monday in an exclusive interview with cleveland.com. "Whether it was because of their decision or my decision, it was whether this was going to continue.''
That fateful night of Nov. 14, when Garrett lost his cool, ripped off Rudolph’s helmet and whacked him over the head with it in the waning seconds of the Browns' 21-7 victory, had Garrett questioning everything he thought he knew about himself and imagining life outside the lines.
"What was I going to do [without football]?'' he said. "What was I going to be? Who am I at the end of the day? Was I still going to be giving without football without that kind of income coming in? Was I still going to take those trips to see people, was I still going to give back to charities, was I still going to give clothing and shoes to schools around me, to coaches that have impacted me?
"All of these things were on my mind.''
He later told ESPN he heard Rudolph call him N word, something he had told teammates that night, an accusation the quarterback vehemently denies. Garrett almost walked away from the game he loves after three years and ended it on that ugly thud.
"I would’ve been OK,'' he said. "I love football. I love competing, I love my teammates, and I definitely want to win, but at the end of the day, I’m still a guy. I’m still a young man who has a lot of life to live and my life is much more than football. I just would’ve moved onto something else I enjoy and found another way to save my competitive nature, whether it would’ve been trying out for a basketball team or going to play baseball like [Michael] Jordan.''
"I would’ve found something else I love to do, whether I was a writing coach or whatever. I would’ve left with my head held high and I wouldn’t have looked back.''
As he returns to the field on Sunday in Baltimore for the first time, he knows he doesn’t need the game to validate his self-worth. A poet, humanitarian, activist, animal lover and aspiring paleontologist, Garrett made an important discovery while digging inside his brain.
"You know that no matter what happens, you’re all right with the result,'' he said. "You won’t be holding onto regrets. You won’t be thinking ‘what if.’
"What happened, happened, and at the end of the day you have to move forward. I was given a second chance and you have to make the best of it. I know something like that won’t happen again, but life’s funny that way. Fame is fleeting, athletic ability is fleeting and you have to make the most of it while it’s here.''
The No. 1 pick in 2017, Garrett ultimately decided that he didn’t want the lasting on-field image of himself to be wielding a black and yellow helmet as a weapon, his face screwed up in anger. The man who wouldn’t kill a bug could never go out that way.
"I know that in my heart — and the people who have raised me [know] — that’s never who I’ve been,'' he said. "I’ve never been one to crawl up in a ball and to shy away from problems or things that happen to me. I had the opportunity to show that my life and what I’ve been through is bigger than the game of football. I’ve been raised with too many values, too many great role models and peers who have showed me the way to have just lost my way with one incident and it won’t define me.''
The incident, captured on national television, catapulted Garrett onto an even larger platform, amplified his voice for change and extended his reach to the poor.
He felt it deeply in February — four days after he was reinstated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell — when he walked among the poor children in Tanzania as captain of the NFL Waterboys program, which helps provide water to those in need, and saw the hope and joy in their eyes.
"I believe everything happens for a reason,'' he said. "It’s just seeing those lessons and taking them in stride. What can I get out of this and how can I make myself a better person and how and am I going to make people better around me who chose to stay, who chose to help me improve upon myself. What can I do for them? How can we get better from here?''
He took inventory of his relationships and edited accordingly.
"I’ve gotten people into my life and out of my life that I didn’t need there, whether it was because of that or just a domino effect starting with that incident,'' he said. "Was it the best cause? Could things have still worked out differently if that didn’t happen? Probably or maybe? We’ll never know. But when I look at it, I see things that have fallen for me after that that have helped me see things that I didn’t see clearly then.''
Garrett and Baker Mayfield grow closer
One silver lining was a much closer relationship with teammates such as quarterback Baker Mayfield, who told Fox Sports on the air immediately after the Steelers game that Garrett’s actions were inexcusable. The comments earned Mayfield a harsh rebuke from teammates such as Sheldon Richardson.
"We didn’t have to clear the air,'' Garrett said. "The man had an opinion and I can’t fault him for that. Especially in this day and age, everybody’s going to have their opinion and I have to respect them for it. He’s my teammate and he’s going to have my back regardless. He saw what he saw and he said what he said. But he’s always had my back, and he’s always going to put his best foot forward for me and for the team.''
In the days after the incident, Mayfield let Garrett know how important he was to the team.
"He wanted me back and he’s said that,'' Garrett said. "He’s proud to have me on this team and I’m proud to have him as my quarterback on this team.''
The embattled defensive end and quarterback, who tumbled to the bottom of the NFL in most key categories, even made a pact this offseason to carry their respective sides of the ball. To live up to their No. 1 status. To do more, be more, play harder and elevate the play of everyone around them.
"We both weren’t proud of how the season ended for each other and now it’s just bouncing back in the ways we know we can,'' Garrett said.
During a recent scrimmage at FirstEnergy Stadium, Mayfield threw an interception on the final play, and Garrett rushed over to tease him, taking the sting out of the moment. It was a gesture that might not have happened in his first two seasons, when Garrett was somewhat of a loner. He had a few close friends such as Larry Ogunjobi, but while his teammates played video games or socialized, Garrett was off writing poetry or photographing waterfalls.
"I’ve just been trying to be close to all the guys,'' Garrett said. "It wasn’t so long ago that I didn’t know if I was going to be playing football again. Anybody can be gone at any time, including myself. People have loved ones that could possibly get sick, and they can bow out at any time. You just have to be able to hold on closer to people that you meet and you appreciate. Try to hold onto those relationships and cherish those memories.''
A face-to-face with Mason Rudolph
Garrett hopes to change the narrative of that night by talking man-to-man to Mason Rudolph, the backup to a now-healthy Ben Roethlisberger.
"If it were to happen, I’d be fine with it,'' he said. "Not just fine, but I wouldn’t mind it and I’d be happy to make it happen, if there were a way. I’m not sure how I’d go about that, how I’d broach that. I’m not even sure if he’d want to do that but I wouldn’t have a problem sitting down with him and just not talking about the incident, just talking man-to-man, how we move forward, and just being better men and football players and not letting something like that happen again.
"Whether we can do that, I’m not sure, but I’d be willing to extend the olive branch and make that happen.''
On some level, Garrett believes that such a meeting can result in a greater good.
"I just don’t want any grudges,'' he said. "I don’t have any grudge against him. I don’t have any ill intent against him. It’s not like I’d have anything against him if I saw him in public or if I saw him in a game and we were suited up. I’d just play him like I play anybody else. if I saw him in public, I’d just fist-bump and walk away just like if I saw anybody else on the street that I didn’t know personally. I don’t have a problem with that. Other than that night, before that play and after that play, I don’t think we spoke two words to each other.
"And now our fates are intertwined forever, and so I don’t think we should leave it off like that, is my opinion. I feel like we should clear the air so there’s no problems and there’s no bad blood. Between our teams and our fans, the rivalry I feel like will live off of it, but between the players, I feel like it should always be competitive but never go over the line.''
He believes it’s possible for the two to shake hands despite Garrett accusing him of the racial slur and Rudolph feeling he’s been slandered. A few days after the incident, Rudolph called the accusation completely false and “I couldn’t believe he would go that route after the fact.”
"It’d be like other instances where people agree to disagree,'' Garrett said. "Just what I heard, just what you said you said and that’s what it is. If you say you didn’t say that, that’s okay, but that’s what I heard. It is what it is at the end of the day. We’re men and it shouldn’t be one situation that keeps you from respecting each other because you can’t look past that. If he wants to hold onto it, I’m not going to have any problems with him if he still has a problem with me.
"I’m just going to keep on playing the game and keep on doing my thing because I have a team and a defense that I still need to lead and I still need to perform for, so whatever we decided to do or make of this, it is what it is.''
Garrett has thought about reaching out to Rudolph over the past 10 months, but didn’t — not even before an ESPN interview with Mina Kimes in February in which he said Rudolph called him “the stupid N word.”
"I’ve been doing other things,'' Garrett said. "There’s a lot going on in the world, so I’ve been trying to keep my focus on that. I don’t want to be focused on one thing. [If] I’m trying to communicate with him and I do it the wrong way and something is sparked all of a sudden, that wouldn’t be my intention.''
He knows who he is
Garrett doesn’t ruminate over how the world views him in the aftermath of the incident.
"I know who I and my family and my friends know who I am,'' he said. "As long as they don’t see me any differently at the end of the day, I don’t have any worries.''
He insists that moment in time won’t get into head and impact his play. He also acknowledged that he won’t incur the full wrath of Steelers fans this season because of the pandemic.
"I guess it won’t bother me too much because they won’t have many fans this year — or any — considering what’s going on in the world,'' he said. "But years down the line, it won’t bother me.''
Regardless of why he snapped, Garrett acknowledges he let the Browns down. When he was banished with six games left, the defense tanked and the Browns lost four of their last six games, including the final three, to finish 6-10. Garrett had 10 sacks in 10 games at the time, and was a candidate for NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
"I did let them down as a leader and a teammate,'' he said. "I allowed the situation to escalate more than it should’ve and there were ways that it could’ve been handled, it should’ve been handled and it wasn’t. I let everybody in the organization down because they know I’m better than that and I didn’t prove it and if one of those situations happen again or something similar, just an escalating situation like that, I just have to prove that I’m bigger than that.''
Blockbuster extension
Seven months and one six-game suspension later, the Browns showed their faith in Garrett by signing him to a five-year extension worth $125 million. The deal made him the highest-paid defender in the NFL for about two weeks, until Joey Bosa topped that with $135 million over five.
To Garrett, the extension was a way to give back more and atone for his mistake. When racial strife erupted throughout the country, he donated to the families of some of those slain, including retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn and Louisville chef David McAtee. He also planned to reach out to Jacob Blake, the Kenosha, Wisconsin, resident and father of six who was shot in the back seven times by police.
“I’ve been blessed with so much, it’s like Uncle Ben (in the Spiderman movie) said ‘with great power comes great responsibility,'” Garrett said. "It kind of falls under the same branch. I wouldn’t want to receive all of this and keep it to myself. There are people who deserve a second chance, who deserve an opportunity to have their voice heard, an opportunity to do something great for the world and there are things that are holding them back either physically, emotionally or monetarily and I want to be there for them.''
The contract takes Garrett up to 2026, his 10th season in the NFL. As a rookie, he said he might hang it up after 10 or 12 years.
"I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,'' Garrett said. "It’s only the first year. However my body feels or wherever I’m at in my life with my friends and my family, I’ll just take it in stride, and whatever happens, happens.''
In February, three months after the incident, Garrett made his previously scheduled trip to Tanzania to bring clean drinking water to the poor, and his own life crisis came into sharp focus.
"There’s famine, there’s disease and they’re making the best they can out of it,'' he said. "It’s amazing to think how joyful they are with how little they have.''
This week, Garrett launched his “Tackle Thirst” campaign, pledging $5,000 per sack to Waterboys, and invited Browns fans to join in. His goal is $95,000 for his No. 95, and 9,500 individuals with clean water.
"Now with the time that I have, I’m going to do the best that I can, not only physically, and for my career,'' he said. "It’s just about giving back with the opportunities that I have.''
Social justice activist
Within the walls of the Browns facility, Garrett has become a vocal leader of the Browns' 11-player social justice committee, dedicated to raising awareness and effecting change in Cleveland and in their own communities in the midst of racial strife.
"There are lot of things that could’ve separated us with our opinions or separate viewpoints, but instead it brought us together,'' he said.
More chiseled in mind, body and spirit, Garrett returns to the team with a greater sense of urgency and duty to bring the Browns a championship.
"It was hard to watch knowing I could’ve been out there making plays, knowing I could’ve been a leader on an off the field,'' he said. "I just have to come back and not only pick up where I left off but even get on a better pace for my teammates and this team and how I was playing defensively. I know I can play better and I know I can do better and it doesn’t just start with sacks and TFLs.
"It’s impact on the field. It’s aggressiveness, it’s leadership, it’s being vocal, it’s empowering my guys to do better and being where they’re supposed to be with alignments and assignments.''
Garrett hasn’t abandoned his individual goals of winning NFL Defensive Player of the Year and being one of the greatest to ever play the game. But those have taken even more of a backseat to team goal.
"It’s always been team-first, but there’s more emphasis on it, especially with this year, all we’ve had to go through,'' he said. "It’s been way too long that we’ve had this talent and not done anything with it. Now we’ve got to make something happen.'
