Myles Garrett downplays Cowboys trade plea: 'I'll play wherever they put me'

Myles Garrett drew comparisons to Eli Manning when, in a video published by ESPN on Friday, he implored the Dallas Cowboys to swing a trade with the Cleveland Browns to get him.

Was this the projected No. 1 overall pick's way of saying he didn't want to play for the Browns? Would he take after Manning and refuse to play for the team that takes him, thus orchestrating a deal at the top of the draft?

Coupled with recent comments indicating he'd prefer to avoid a cold-weather destination, that was the easy conclusion to reach. But that doesn't mean the Texas A&M pass-rusher isn't willing to play for whatever team calls his name on opening night.

Asked later that night whether he'd be willing to go to Cleveland, Garrett did what he could to squash concerns raised by his comments.

"Definitely," Garrett told Mark Berman of Fox 26. "People may say they're this, they're that, or I made a comment about cold weather and they kind of pointed toward Cleveland with that. That doesn't matter to me. I'll play wherever they put me. It's about your mindset. If you go in there with a mindset that you're going to turn things around, and you can make that contagious, and people start to believe in it, you can turn into a winning program wherever you go."

Garrett's willingness to play for the Browns will remain a talking point right up until draft day, and quite possibly even beyond that point, as a consensus top player openly asking for another team to trade up is rare.

The Arlington, Texas native hoping to somehow end up with his hometown Cowboys, a team undoubtedly on the rise after stacking its roster with young talent, would be entirely understandable. And perhaps that really is his dream scenario.

But it's highly unlikely he ever meant the trade plea to be taken all that seriously, as ESPN later stated that the producers had told Garrett to have fun with the video while filming back in December.

And as much as Jerry Jones would presumably love to swing a blockbuster deal that solves his club's pass-rushing needs, Dallas' chances of moving from No. 28 overall to the top spot in the first round are virtually non-existent.

Should Cleveland pass up one of the draft's top quarterbacks to select him, as many believe the organization should, the Browns will land themselves one of the most highly touted defensive prospects in recent memory.

Garrett will make the jump to the NFL after a stellar three-year career at College Station, where he racked up 31 sacks and 47 tackles for loss.