Myles Garrett’s criticism of Gregg Williams isn’t a big deal

In a Bleacher Report story published this week, Browns pass rusher Myles Garrett had some criticism for Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. Williams was Garrett’s defensive coordinator and then interim head coach in Cleveland.

“I hopefully have more freedom to be the player I want to be,” Garrett says. “[Former defensive coordinator and interim head coach] Gregg [Williams] 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.”

It seems like this picked up some buzz on Twitter so let me offer you some cold takes on it.

1. Williams probably wanted to simplify the game for a young player who was developing. That’s a reasonable way to operate.
2. Garrett probably was frustrated because he felt like he wasn’t able to use all of the tools at his disposal. That’s also a reasonable viewpoint. Just because two people disagree doesn’t mean somebody is wrong.
3. Garrett had 13.5 sacks last season so it seems dubious to say Williams held him back. (And to be fair, Garrett has immense talent and was the number one overall pick so it also feels like a reach to say Williams played a big role in that. Garrett is always going to get his numbers no matter how effective or ineffective his coaching is.)
4. This is the type of stuff you always hear from a team that has just made a coaching change. Before the team actually takes the field, you always hear about how the new coaching staff is going to be so much better than the old coaching staff.