Jared Verse arrives in Cleveland, vows to bring his own style after Myles Garrett trade

BEREA, Ohio (AP) — Anyone expecting Jared Verse to be the next Myles Garrett after Monday's blockbuster trade between the Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Rams are already going to be disappointed.

For one, Verse can't literally step into Garrett's shoes.

“Myles he’s a size 13, Nikes, whatever they are. I’m a size 13½, size 14 Jordans. I’m not here to fill his shoes. I’m here to bring my own,” Verse said on Wednesday after taking part in his first practice with the Browns.

Verse said he has watched plenty of film of Garrett and keyed in on a couple of things he does. But he has taken some of the technical moves in Garrett's game and tried to make them his own.

Verse arrived in Cleveland on Tuesday afternoon and took his physical. He took part in individual and position drills on Wednesday as the Browns conducted their eighth voluntary organized team activity practice.

There isn't much time during the offseason program to bring Verse up to speed. The Browns have two more OTA sessions on Thursday and Friday before next week's three-day mandatory minicamp wraps up everything until training camp begins in late July.

Verse is going from the Rams' 3-4 scheme and playing outside linebacker to the Browns' 4-3 base and lining up at defensive end, which he did at Florida State. Coach Todd Monken said moving back to a 4-3 should be easier.

Verse had 4½ sacks en route to being the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2024. He had 7½ sacks last season, along with three forced fumbles.

“I think that this will allow him to do one thing and that is run off the ball, run into a dark room and disrupt. I mean, he’s gonna fit us like a glove,” Monken said. "I see his track ascending. I just see a world of upside by the way he’s wired.”

The Browns got Verse and three draft picks — a 2027 first-rounder, a second-round pick in 2028 and 2029 third-round selection — for Garrett, who set the NFL single-season record in sacks last year with 23. Browns general manager Andrew Berry said on Tuesday that any trade involving Garrett had to include a young premium player on a team-friendly contract

Verse, the 19th overall pick in the 2024 draft, is on the third year of his rookie contract. The Browns can exercise the fifth-year option on Verse’s contract next year or negotiate a long-term extension.

Verse was disappointed for a couple of hours when he was informed about the trade, until he learned that he was the key piece in the blockbuster deal that allowed the Browns to trade the two-time AP Defensive Player of the Year to the Rams.

“To know that this wasn’t going to go through if I wasn’t a part of it, it’s good to know that,” Verse said. "That was probably the biggest fact that brought some sunshine into this whole situation for me, I saw that, I was like, ‘Yeah, they want me.’ It was cool to know that.”

Defensive end Alex Wright thought the news of Garrett's trade was fake until he started getting news notifications on his phone.

Wright, who was sitting on his back patio of his house Monday afternoon, then had the same response of many Browns' fans.

“It was like, ‘yeah, let me go get a drink right quick,’” Wright said.

About the only one who wasn't fazed by the trade news was linebacker Carson Schwesinger, who was on the golf course at the Browns Foundation tournament.

“I was kind of trying to figure out how to fix my slice the whole time. That was at the forefront of my mind. Every hole it was there,” he said.

Verse spent plenty of time with Wright as the two worked on pass rush moves. Even though he is still getting up to speed, Verse has seen enough early signs to think he can fit right in.

“This is an attacking front. That’s kind of my style. I’ll be attacking. I want to get to it. I want to have a defined situation, just be able to do my thing every time without having to think too much or without having to slow down and read keys," Verse said.

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Cleveland Browns linebacker Carson Schwesinger walks on the field after the NFL football team's practice, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Berea, Ohio (AP Photo/David Richard)

Cleveland Browns defensive end Alex Wright stands on the field during the NFL football team's practice, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Berea, Ohio (AP Photo/David Richard)

Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken watches drills during the NFL football team's practice, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Berea, Ohio (AP Photo/David Richard)

Cleveland Browns defensive end Jared Verse (8) runs a drill during the NFL football team's practice, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Berea, Ohio (AP Photo/David Richard)

Cleveland Browns defensive end Jared Verse speaks to the media after the NFL football team's practice, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Berea, Ohio (AP Photo/David Richard)

Days after the state’s primary, California voters are in a familiar position -- waiting to find out which candidates will go on to the general election in their most high-profile races, for governor and Los Angeles mayor.

It’s not surprising those have yet to be resolved, along with several closely contested congressional races, because the state routinely takes days, or even weeks, to fully tally races. Nor is it unusual for President Donald Trump to complain about the pace of the count and allege fraud, as he did Thursday. It’s something he’s done repeatedly in the past.

What was unusual was that Trump announced that his Department of Justice was investigating the count: “Why the vote counting DELAY???,” the president posted on his social media account.

He suggested that the state's Democrats were somehow cheating so two candidates he favors — Republican Steve Hilton in the governor's race and Spencer Pratt in the nonpartisan mayor's race — would be bumped from the top two slots and therefore ineligible for the November general election.

“You see what’s happening in California, they’re rigging the election," he told reporters during an Oval Office gathering Thursday.

Trump's posts prompted a response from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose press office posted a clip of a CNN video explaining how the nation’s most populous state prioritizes accuracy and accessibility over speed, drawing out the count.

“For the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too,” Newsom’s office posted.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles declined to comment about whether it was investigating the ballot counting.

The law in California practically mandates a drawn-out count. Ballots are mailed to every eligible voter — some 23 million of them — and the state has permissive rules for returning them. They will be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at an election office within seven days.

Only after the polls have closed and most of the country has gone to sleep can local election workers begin the lengthy process of verifying the legitimacy of the late-arriving mail ballots and then start to tabulate them.

If a voters' signature on the ballot envelope doesn't match what's on file, election officials are required to give those voters a chance to come in and prove their identity so the ballot will count, delaying a final tally further.

“We might not like how California administers its elections (and I don’t),” wrote Stephen Richer a former Republican election official in Maricopa County, Arizona, on the social platform X. “But that doesn’t make it fraud.”

Last year, Newsom signed a bill requiring the vote count to be completed within 13 days, rather than the previous 30 days. To get an extension, counties must inform the Secretary of State's Office that they have a reason for a delay.

That's not quick enough for the president: “The Dumocrats are at it again!” the president wrote on his social media platform. “They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.”

State Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Democrat who wrote the bill to accelerate ballot counting, said Trump’s comments were disappointing and “a lie.”

“While Trump is laser focused on lying about our elections and undermining voters’ faith in our democracy, so that Republicans can then try to pass policies like Voter ID laws that make it harder for people to vote, our priority is to make sure that every validly cast ballot is counted,” he said in a statement.

Some experts warned that the count from Tuesday's primary might take even longer than after previous elections.

“What compounds things this time around is that Democrats have been holding on to their ballots,” said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor.

The state's millions of Democrats this year were exceptionally slow to send in their ballots, apparently waiting until the last minute to make a selection in the ever-evolving governor's race. The state operates a primary in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, move on to the general election, and Democrats had been fretting for months that having so many Democrats in the race would splinter the vote in such a way that two Republicans would claim the top two spots.

Democratic voters appeared to wait until the end to see which of their candidates were emerging as favorites. The high number of late ballots will likely make the delay in getting final counts even greater.

While millions of ballots have been counted by now, it's the uncounted ones that loom largest for close races.

Despite being an overwhelmingly Democratic state, California has featured some of the nation's closest congressional elections, sometimes decided by just a few hundred votes, so there's often no way to determine a winner until the weekslong ballot count has concluded. In 2024, one House race wasn't called until December.

Things get even more complicated in a primary election, such as Tuesday's. That's because the news isn't just the top vote-getter but also the second place finisher. To know the true outcome of any race, enough votes need to be tallied to know for certain who finished in first and second.

Another side effect of the enormous crush of late mail ballots that get tallied last is that the final vote gets more and more Democratic. That's because Republicans are more likely to return their ballots early or vote in person, on Election Day. Those ballots get counted first.

The gradual shifting of the vote to Democrats as ballot counting goes on has sparked all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Republicans have long complained about the California count, even though the GOP did well in close House races in the state in 2024. The Republican National Committee filed lawsuits in other states challenging the legality of counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day and the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on the issue sometime this month.

But worries about the California vote count aren't only a partisan issue. Voting advocates have urged state lawmakers to better fund local election offices so they can process the avalanche of late-arriving ballots faster.

“The Legislature needs to throw a lot more money to get the count quicker,” Hasen said.

Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Sophie Austin in Sacramento contributed to this report.

Ballots are inspected the day after California's primary election at the LA County Ballot Processing Center Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in City of Industry, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Ballots are sorted the day after California's primary election at the LA County Ballot Processing Center Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in City of Industry, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Workers sort ballots the day after California's primary election at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in City of Industry, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)