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Jared Verse’s family is from Dayton, Ohio, and his older sister still lives there and will be relatively close, so the trade that sent Verse to the Cleveland Browns comes with benefits. But let’s not kid ourselves, going from the Los Angeles Rams to the Browns was not welcome news for Verse.
“I was sad for a good while,” Verse revealed when he met with local reporters at the Browns’ facility on Wednesday.
Understandable.
Jared Verse of the Los Angeles Rams reacts during the NFC Championship game against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington on January 25, 2026.
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That’s because going from the Rams, a Super Bowl contender, to the Browns, a team fighting to finish last in the AFC North, won’t immediately feel great. It is the well-known trip from the penthouse to the outhouse.
“Yeah, that surprised me,” Verse continued. “I loved LA. I loved the coaches, the organization, my teammates, everybody a part of it, the staff, the fans. You know, I loved the whole vibe of LA, Los Angeles, the Rams, and it was upsetting.”
This is a player who shows no weakness on the field and is vulnerable to strangers.
And there really shouldn’t be any judgment here, because we get it. We’ve seen it before.
Jared Goff helped the Rams get to a Super Bowl in February 2019. So he thought he was building a life with that team. But two years later, he was traded to the Detroit Lions for the older, more skilled Matthew Stafford.
Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions celebrates a touchdown during an NFL game against the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Md., on Sept. 22, 2025. (Michael Owens/Getty Images)
It’s a blow to the ego.
And like the Goff-Stafford deal, we’re talking about going from Gucci leather belts to rust belts. Because Cleveland is a nice city and all, but the weather doesn’t compare to Los Angeles. And the mood for a 25-year-old with a lot of money is obviously not the same either.
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Then there are the prospects for the coming season. Verse was mentally prepared to run it back with a good team until this trade. The Rams had a 12-5 record last season and reached the NFC Championship game. The Browns were 5-12 and reached a coaching change.
But one duty, one presumes, of being a professional athlete is to understand that your team is your workplace. It’s your business, not your family’s.
Many teams tell players they are in a family, but when was the last time a family traded a son or brother?
Vers gets it now.
“When you’re an athlete, you understand the nature of the business,” he said. “Everybody does what they think is best for their business and that’s the situation I’m in. I’m glad to be a part of the Browns. I’m glad they believed in me and were able to make that trade and bring me here, be with my teammates, be with everybody here.
“And I really believe in everyone in the dressing room. But it was annoying at first. But then you had two choices: You can either work or you can give up, and I’ve never been a smoker.”
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Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett warms up before the NFL Week 10 game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ on November 9, 2025. (IMAGIN)
An intriguing aspect of the Browns trading Myles Garrett for Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-round pick and a 2029 third-round pick is that they held out until the Rams added Verse to the deal. Up until that point, the deal was a draft compensation trade for Garrett that Cleveland didn’t necessarily want to make.
“I’ve always told myself that if we were ever in a position to trade Myles, three things would have to be true,” Browns Executive Vice President and General Manager Andrew Berry said. “Number one, it had to have short- and long-term benefits. Number two, as part of the trade, a young cost-control star at a premium position had to be included. The third piece is there had to be premium draft capital.
“And there’s a very small set of deals that really meet those limitations. So when it got to the point with our negotiations with the Rams, when all those things were met, it really made us take a step back and really think about the decision.
“Jared Verse, he’s obviously a big part of this comeback for us.”
This is good for Vers. He’s on a team that wants him and is more closely aligned with his career. He is on his rookie contract through the 2027 season. And he is on a team that is building for a brighter future in maybe two or three years.
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The Rams are in win-now mode. They are stacking their roster with expensive veterans and in two or three years they could be in rebuilding mode.
So maybe the move that Verse didn’t like at first could work in his favor.
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