Sean McVay has no timeline for Myles Garrett's return after knee surgery, defends playing him in Week 1 loss to 49ers

Posted by Admin September 14, 2026 NFL

Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams thought that Myles Garrett was fully healthy heading into their season opener in Australia last week.

But after their 27-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, McVay said it was clear that their new star pass rusher needed to undergo knee surgery.

The Rams placed Garrett on injured reserve, and he will soon undergo arthroscopic surgery on his knee. Garrett had been dealing with swelling in his left knee and missed a good chunk of training camp because of it.

“Thought we would take an approach where he’d be feeling good enough to go contribute positive change and be the player that he’s capable of,” McVay said on Monday, via ESPN. “That wasn’t the case. And so, the next right thing for us is to be able to get this thing fixed.”

Garrett is arguably the best pass rusher in the league. He set the single-season sack record with 23 last season with the Cleveland Browns, and the Rams gave up Jared Verse and multiple draft picks to acquire him this past offseason.

But against the 49ers, Garrett looked like anything but his old self. He didn’t have a single tackle in that game, which marked the first time he played a game without a tackle since Week 11 in the 2024 season. It was just the fourth game of his career without a tackle, too.

After the contest, Garrett admitted that he’s not fully healthy and that his knee was still an issue.

“This was the worst version of myself that I’ve put out there, and I’ve got to be better,” he said.

Garrett will now miss at least four games after landing on injured reserve. At best, he’d be able to return for the team’s Week 6 matchup with the Arizona Cardinals on Oct. 18, though McVay didn’t have a specific timeline for how long Garrett would be sidelined.

Even though the timing of the injury isn’t great, McVay said both he and the Rams thought they were handling it properly in the days and weeks leading up to their opener. That game, however, made it clear that they had to go another direction.

“It was right after the game just in terms of listening to how he felt, how he was able to impact the game, and even just what you guys saw with how limited that we had to be with him,” McVay said. “Obviously we thought we were doing the right thing, but in hindsight, you’ll always be able to learn from it. I’ll never hang on to whether you want to say it was a mistake or just different things to be able to change course if that’s the right line of trajectory.”