The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Fans ‘wanted’ Garrett, get their wish
Browns fans gathered en masse in the Cleveland Municipal Lot on April 27 to watch, some through their fingers as their hands covered their faces, the 2017 NFL Draft.
It was reported a few hours before the draft that the Browns would select Texas A&M defensive end Myles Garrett, but still, some fans weren’t ready to believe it until Garrett was holding that jersey at his draft party in Texas.
“Three minutes! Three minutes!” a fan shouted as he paced throughout the crowd around 7:57 p.m. before looking at me and saying, “Three minutes till a death sentence.”
The trepidation quickly turned to relief and then pure joy when the pick was made official — Garrett to the Browns at No. 1 — and the Muni Lot crowd errupted.
“He was the best in college,” Rebecca Browand of Cleveland said. “I wanted him (on the Browns) as soon as I saw him in the bowl game and in the NFL combine.
“I think we’re on the right track.”
Browand was just one of thousands of Browns fans elated by the pick after weeks of speculation that Cleveland might use its first pick on a quarterback, specifically Mitchell Trubisky.
“It’s got to be Garrett. We don’t need a quarterback,” said more than one passerby near the main stage set up near the west end of the Muni Lot where the draft was being broadcast live.
“I didn’t want Trubisky,” Browand added. “I hope the for the best for him, I really do, but we don’t need him. The city puts so much pressure on hometown kids.”
Trubisky was ultimately taken at No. 2 by the Bears, a pick that stunned almost everyone, including the Muni Lot crowd which was still chanting “Garrett! Garrett!” when the second pick was announced, sending a wave of shocked silence from the main stage to the people still tailgating.
There were at least a few folks in the crowd rooting for the Browns to take a shot on Trubisky, though, including Jamie Klein, a eighth-grader from Mentor who said it would have been one of the coolest things he’s seen in his life.
“My mom had (Trubisky) all through 10th grade in her class, and it would’ve been crazy,” Klein said. “I went to every one of his games when he was in high school. I DM’d him and he actually DM’d back and I was flipping out. It was the coolest thing ever.”
The fans quickly shook off the Trubisky pick and went right back to partying, waiting anxiously for the Browns to pick again at No. 12.
The Browns had other plans, though, and traded down with Houston for the Texans’ 25th pick and their first-round pick in 2018, and once again that shocked look appeared on the faces of fans all around me.
As Goodell announced Houston had selected Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson with the 12th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, Cleveland fans decided they’d had enough, that braving the chilly lateApril weather wasn’t worth waiting around for pick No. 25, and the Muni Lot crowd called it a night.