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The Rams’ poor start to the season has gotten worse.
Star pass rusher Myles Garrett, the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year, will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery and is expected to be placed on the injured reserve list, a source confirmed Sunday to Front Office Sports.
An IR stint would require Garrett to miss at least four games. For the Rams, that would mean they’d be without him for a difficult stretch of the schedule that includes games at home against the Giants, at the Broncos and Eagles, then at home against the Bills.
He would be eligible to be activated for an Oct. 18 game at home against the Cardinals in Week 6.
Garrett did not have a sack or even a tackle in the Rams’ 27–7 loss to the 49ers in Australia to open their season Thursday night. That’s after he set the NFL’s single-season sack record with 23 last season for the Browns.
“This was the worst version of myself that I’ve put out there,” Garrett told reporters during his postgame news conference in Melbourne. “And I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to find a way to recover and get back to the player I know I can be and I’ve shown that I’ve been before.”
Garrett had been dealing with the knee issue throughout training camp. The surgery appears to be an attempt to keep the problem from lingering all season.
Los Angeles entered the season as the prohibitive Super Bowl favorite after losing to the Seahawks in last season’s NFC Championship Game and then trading for cornerback Trent McDuffie and Garrett in the offseason. Defensive tackle Aaron Donald, a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, came out of retirement to join Garrett on an imposing defensive line.
The cost to acquire Garrett was particularly high. The Rams traded pass rusher Jared Verse and three draft choices, including a first-rounder next year, to the Browns. They reworked Garrett’s four-year, $160 million contract with the Browns to raise his pay for this season to more than $37 million.
Donald rejoined the team late last month on a one-year deal that will pay him $20 million, plus an additional $10 million in potential incentives. Los Angeles has taken advantage of the salary cap accounting rules to squeeze $356.3 million in cash spending on players’ contracts, according to Spotrac, beneath the NFL’s cap of $301.2 million per team. The Rams are all-in in their chase for another Super Bowl title.
Their pursuit could not have begun much worse. Donald did not accompany the Rams to Australia and did not play against the 49ers. Their travel plan to make the trip to Australia just ahead of the game didn’t work, resulting in a sluggish performance. Quarterback Matthew Stafford, the reigning league MVP, threw an interception and finished the game on the sideline, as coach Sean McVay went to backup Stetson Bennett in the closing minutes of the lopsided contest.
There’s plenty of time for the Rams to work out their issues. But now their would-be powerful defense will not have Garrett and Donald on the field together until at least mid-October.
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