LOS ANGELES â Myles Garrettâs knee surgery did not come out of nowhere. The Rams had been managing swelling in his knee for more than a month, Garrett had barely practiced during stretches of training camp, and he admitted during his Los Angeles debut that the problem was still causing pain. What changed after Week 1 was that managing it was apparently no longer enough.
Garrett is set to undergo arthroscopic surgery on his knee and will be placed on injured reserve, according to reports from NFL reporters. That guarantees he will miss at least four games, with Los Angeles reportedly hoping he can return around the end of that minimum absence.
The exact structural problem requiring surgery has not yet been publicly identified. There has been no confirmed diagnosis of a torn meniscus, ligament damage or another specific knee injury, so describing the procedure as treatment for any one of those conditions would be premature.
Garrett’s knee had been bothering him since training camp
The first clear warning came in August. Garrett missed multiple practices with what the Rams initially described as lower-body soreness. On August 11, coach Sean McVay revealed that Garrett was dealing with swelling in his knee.
Garrett told McVay he felt around â85 percent.â The Rams held him out of a joint practice with Dallas, but McVay said there had been no setback and emphasized that the team was being cautious.
âWe want to make sure that when he returns to play, he’s able to return to full performance and feel like himself,â McVay said at the time. âThere’s nothing to be concerned about.â The comments were published by the Rams’ official website.
The issue did not disappear quickly. Garrett remained limited through portions of August as Los Angeles attempted to manage the swelling and have him ready for the season opener in Australia.
Garrett revealed the problem was still painful in Melbourne
By Week 1, the public outlook had improved. Garrett went from not practicing Tuesday to being estimated as a full participant Wednesday and Thursday. The Rams gave him no final injury designation for the game against San Francisco. McVay said he was âready to go.â
But the game told a different story.
Garrett rotated in and out of the lineup and appeared fatigued during the Rams’ 27-7 defeat. During the Netflix broadcast, reporter Tom Pelissero said Garrett had told him the issue was actually âlower-leg stuffâ and that it was still causing him pain.
Garrett finished without a tackle, sack or quarterback hit. He also failed to generate a pressure, the first time that had happened in a game since 2018. Afterward, he described the performance as âthe worst version of myself that I’ve put out there.â
Only days later came the decision for arthroscopic surgery.
Arthroscopy is a minimally invasive procedure in which a surgeon uses a small camera and instruments inside the knee. But without the Rams revealing what doctors found or intend to repair, the precise cause of Garrett’s persistent swelling and pain remains unanswered.
That makes the most important question surrounding his injury straightforward: was surgery always a possibility if the knee failed to respond, or did something change after Garrett played against San Francisco? For now, the Rams have not publicly provided that detail.
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