'There's no rivalry between me and him': Browns' Myles Garrett downplays facing Baker Mayfield

BEREA, Ohio — Myles Garrett wasn't surprised to see that Baker Mayfield was going to be the Carolina Panthers' starting quarterback in Week 1. The Browns defensive end wasn't not surprised, either.

Really, Garrett wouldn't say there was any emotion exerted one way or the other when the Panthers did the obvious thing to announce the former Browns quarterback was going to be their starting quarterback in the season opener.

“Did I expect him to win that job?," Garrett said Tuesday, a day after the Panthers announced Mayfield as their Week 1 starter. "I didn’t really think about it, whether he won it or not I knew I had to play the Panthers. So I’m happy that he won it. I don’t wish any ill upon him, but I wasn’t expecting to be looking at any other quarterback.”

Mayfield was, in theory, in a training camp battle with Sam Darnold to be the Panthers' starter when the Browns visit on Sept. 11. However, from the day the Browns sent him to the Panthers in exchange for a conditional fifth-round pick, the assumption was that the former No. 1 overall pick was going to be the Day One starter.

And Day One meant opening his first season with the Panthers against the team that sent him there.

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"Obviously, there's a lot of attachment there,'' Mayfield told reporters in Charlotte on Monday. "I'm not going to sit here and be a robot and say it doesn't mean anything. It will.''

Garrett and Mayfield were back-to-back No. 1 overall picks by the Browns in 2017 and 2018. The two helped the Browns eventually make just their second playoff appearance since the franchise's re-birth and win their first playoff game since Jan. 1, 1995 during the 2020 season.

The two were also together a year ago, when expectations and a shoulder injury to Mayfield weighed down the Browns in an 8-9 season. It was after that season the team elected to pursue − and eventually trade for − Deshaun Watson, opening the door for Mayfield to be jettisoned in his own deal to the Panthers.

Garrett, though, wasn't about to open up any doors into his own personal feelings about potential grudge matches between he and Mayfield.

“He’s my former teammate," Garrett said. "But I don’t have any … there’s no rivalry between me and him and there’s no rivalry between the Panthers and the Browns. Yes, he was here but that doesn’t mean I have an added sense of urgency to get to him. I want to play my best and whatever’s in the cards, that’s it for me. If I can help my team win. If I can put them in the best position to win, I’m going to do that and if I can get a couple sacks along the way, I would kind of enjoy that too."

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The last time Mayfield played a game for the Browns was in a Week 17 "Monday Night Football" game at Pittsburgh. The game turned into a debacle of sorts as he was asked to throw the ball 38 times despite the injured left shoulder and a rookie right tackle lined up opposite of eventual NFL defensive player of the year T.J. Watt.

Mayfield was sacked nine times in the game. That total includes four sacks by Watt.

None of that, however, is relevant to Garrett as he prepares for Mayfield and the Panthers.

"We don't play like Pittsburgh," Garrett said. "I would watch a 4-3 defense and how they did it. But I think there's some good examples as far as how teams have rushed us before and so just trying to use those for example. Mostly it's the same up on the line, but I just gotta see how they set with him.

"I know they're set a little bit differently, and their chemistry is going to be a little bit different, so seeing how they're going to allow that and watching the preseason games and seeing what he's doing, and has he changed his depth at all, is he stepping up more, is he stepping back in the pocket, seeing where he's locating himself, trying to make plays."

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There could be an advantage or two for the Browns defense as it prepares to see Mayfield. Certainly, there's no team that likely better knows Mayfield than the team that picked him No. 1 overall and had him in the building for four years.

Garrett isn't one to consider that too much of an advantage. A big reason for that is two-fold: a new team for Mayfield and, just maybe, a new look to him as well.

"I don't think it really matters," Garrett said. "Just because he has tendencies, I'm sure he likes to throw the ball in certain spots along the field. But he has different targets, he has a different line, so he's going to have to change as well. He has different coaches who are going to work with him on those things that they've seen that he likes to do. So I'm sure we're going to see not a completely different Baker, but someone who's worked on some of his weaknesses and like I said, his tendencies, to be a more complete player and diversify himself."

Contact Chris Easterling at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com or on Twitter @ceasterlingABJ.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Myles Garrett downplays Browns' 2022 season opener vs. Baker Mayfield