Myles Garrett excited to have more freedom in Browns defense

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“Freedom!”

It may not only be a rallying cry of William Wallace in “Braveheart” but a concept that could help Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett take an even greater leap in his third season in the NFL.

According to Jake Burns in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Garrett is excited to have more freedom in the Browns defense this year now that former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams is no longer in charge.

“I hopefully have more freedom to be the player I want to be,” Garrett said. “Gregg was more like: ‘You win with these two moves. I don’t want to see anything else out of you.’ It’s kind of hard with two moves. I feel like you can’t always be so predictable.

“You can be as strong or fast as you want, but speed chop and power move aren’t always going to work. You have to mix up what you’re doing. Sometimes you have to stutter step, sometimes you have to spin inside, you have to run some games. You have to have some freedom to throw different looks at them, and we didn’t always have that.”

Limiting Garrett to only two moves may not be as flawed a concept as it seems on the surface. By only allowing Garrett to use a couple moves, it could help encourage a developing young player to perfect the moves before throwing other concepts in down the line. But Garrett seemed to be more than ready for the so-called training wheels to be taken off last season. The former No. 1 overall pick posted 13.5 sacks and was named to the Pro Bowl and was a second-team All-Pro selection.

Garrett is on the verge of becoming one of the league’s top edge rushers. With Steve Wilks now in place as defensive coordinator and, presumably, more freedom to mix and match rush moves more frequently, Garrett may be in for a stellar campaign this fall in Cleveland.