Myles Garrett wants to show Browns' 'best defense in the league' is also best in playoffs

BEREA — Myles Garrett had one thing to do before he stepped up to the podium to do his weekly media availability. The Browns All-Pro defensive end had to slide on his work shirt.

What's Garrett's work shirt? It's a black blue-collar work shirt with "Myles" in red script on the left side of his chest that special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone handed out several weeks earlier to symbolize having to "go to work."

Was the choice of shirt, with the Browns' AFC wild card game at the Houston Texans fast approaching on Saturday, a conscious decision?

"Maybe," Garrett said with a mischievous grin.

The Browns have survived a regular season filled with potholes and potential problem, almost all of them caused by injuries. That they're still playing as the postseason gets underway is a testament to a whole lot of people going to work to make sure those injuries didn't torpedo the opportunity to be at this point.

It was also about a defense doing a whole lot of work to be, in their words, "the best in the world." They backed up a lot of that talk by finishing No. 1 in the NFL in, among other statistical categories, total yards (270.2), passing yards (164.7) and third-down efficiency (29.13%).

That was the regular season, though. The playoffs are a whole different ecosystem, but Garrett said it's incumbent on the Browns to once again establish themselves as the dominant predator in this environment as well.

"It's the best defense in the league," Garrett said. "We got to go out and show it. We got to go put our stamp on that and make sure that we're the same defense. Whether we're home or away, continue to be ourselves.

To do that, the Browns need Garrett to continue to be himself. Specifically, they need him to be the quarterback-wreaking force of nature that has made him one of the favorites to win Defensive Player of the Year.

Garrett finished the regular season tied with the Dallas Cowboys' Micah Parsons for seventh in the league with 14 sacks. However, although he didn't play in the finale at Cincinnati like most of the other starters, he still only had one official sack in the final six games in which he played.

That has to change against the Texans, who have gone from being one of the worst teams in the NFL to the AFC South champions in a year in part because of the way rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud has performed this season. Stroud led the league in passing yards per game (273.9) and had a 23-to-5 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

Count Garrett among the believers in the former Ohio State standout, who the Browns didn't see when they beat the Texans on Christmas Eve.

"What impresses me the most?" Garrett repeated when asked about Stroud. "His composure for his age, his first year, being able to make his progressions and get it out on time. A lot of quarterbacks when it's their first year, they want to stick to one, two and have to get it out. He's done a great job of getting the game down to this point, but we have to speed it up for him and make him see how he feels when the bullets are flying."

That's where the Browns defensive line, led by Garrett, gets into the act. Stroud has been sacked 38 times this season, which is the eighth-most among starting quarterbacks this season.

No starting quarterback with at least 283 drop-backs, according to Pro Football Focus, had a higher percentage of the pressures applied to him turned into sacks when blitzed at 29% (18 of 62). Overall, 19.6% (38 of 194) of the time Stroud was pressured, he was sacked.

Now comes the Browns defense, which has been all about heating up quarterbacks since defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz took over. The Browns ranked sixth in the league with 49 sacks this season.

"I don't think it's like an edge thing where you come in and he's a rookie quarterback and he may struggle with this, he may struggle with that," Browns linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah said of Stroud. "I think he's mature enough to be able to — and he's seen enough football to — be able to execute in the way that he should. I don't think him being a rookie quarterback is going to affect his play at all."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Browns at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/browns. Follow him on Twitter at @ceasterlingABJ

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Myles Garrett wants Browns defense's greatness to extend to playoffs