RAMS TRADE JARED VERSE AND THREE PICKS FOR KNEE SURGERY

Myles Garrett made his Rams debut Thursday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and finished with zero sacks, zero tackles and zero quarterback hits. Thirty-nine snaps, three hurries by PFF's count, and a box score you could scroll past without knowing he dressed. On Sunday the explanation arrived: arthroscopic knee surgery and injured reserve, minimum four games. Los Angeles sent Jared Verse, a 2027 first, a 2028 second and a 2029 third to Cleveland in June for the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, a guy coming off a record 23 sacks. One week in, the return on that haul is a scoped knee and Garrett telling reporters it was "the worst version of myself that I've put out there." The team spent camp calling the knee swelling and maintenance. Turns out maintenance means surgery. The actual game was no better. The Rams got beat 27-7, Brock Purdy threw three touchdowns with time to check his phone between reads, and the preseason Super Bowl favorites are 0-1 after flying halfway around the planet the day before kickoff, and being hyped up like the Greatest Show on Turf was coming back. Garrett now misses the Giants, Broncos, Eagles and Bills, and is eligible to return in Week 6 against Arizona. Aaron Donald came out of retirement for this defense and didn't play in the opener either, so to be fair the terrifying front everyone spent the summer hyping still has not appeared on a field together.

Why you should give a shit: Four weeks is the survivable version of this, because the unsurvivable version is Verse making Pro Bowls in Cleveland through 2029 while the Rams keep describing a surgical knee as maintenance.