The night before he set the Cleveland Browns’ single-season sack record in 2021, Myles Garrett devoured five episodes of Michael Jordan’s 10-part series “The Last Dance.”

He told me he was fascinated with Jordan’s quest for excellence and his pursuit of becoming the greatest of all time. 

Four years later, Garrett is carving his own path to greatness. At 21.5 sacks, he is 1.5 sacks from becoming the NFL’s single-season record holder. With the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers looming, it’s important he reaches the mark within the next two weeks so he can break it in 16 games to match Michael Strahan’s mark in 2001 and avoid any need for an asterisk. T.J. Watt tied the mark three years ago, but he needed the new 17-game schedule to get there.

With each snap, each swipe, every Euro step, every bull rush and every bend around the next helpless offensive tackle, Garrett is no longer just pursuing quarterbacks. He’s chasing history. 

I’m not sure I’ve EVER seen this before!

Myles Garrett forces the Titans into a delay of game penalty, because they’re sending 2 offensive players wherever he aligns… WOW!

Garett has 3.5 sacks on the day. #DawgPound pic.twitter.com/2WrjTGqTod

— Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) September 24, 2023

If his health cooperates, Garrett is a future Hall of Famer who will go down as the greatest to play his position. That may sound premature given the names he is chasing — specifically Bruce Smith and Reggie White — but as Garrett closes in on his 30th birthday in a few weeks, he is the perfect blend of White’s power and Smith’s speed.

Opponents have stacked three blockers to Garrett’s side at times, while helpless offensive tackles’ best form of protection has been turning and yelling “Run!” at their vulnerable quarterbacks after Garrett bursts by them.

Garrett already ranks in the top 20 all-time in sacks. Just a couple of weeks ago, he was on pace for 30 this season, a number so absurd it would be the equivalent of Aaron Judge launching 90 home runs next summer. That pace has cooled the past couple of weeks, but Garrett set a goal of 25 sacks for this season and has scribbled that onto his wrist tape during games. That mark remains well within range, given that he has already stacked performances of three-, four- and five-sack games this season.

Smith is the all-time sacks leader with 200. At his current rate, Garrett would catch him late in the 2030 season at age 34. Coincidentally, that’s how long he remains tied to the Browns after signing a mammoth four-year, $160 million extension in March.

I wrote then that I believe the Browns should have honored his trade request rather than give him the extension, not because of his talent level, but because this team appears nowhere close to contention while he remains in his prime. If nothing else, Garrett’s pursuit of Smith will give Browns fans something to cheer about while the franchise continues to fumble in the darkness.

Even if Garrett’s sack rate slips as he ages, which is only natural, he still has plenty of time to catch Smith and White if he wants to stick around that long. White played until he was 39. Smith played until he was 40. Garrett will have earned well over $300 million by the time his current deal expires. How long he’ll want to put his body through the rigors of the NFL may depend on how close he is to the record — or whether he already has it.

In a career of superlatives, this is easily his best season yet. He’s putting up historic numbers in limited opportunities. Entering last week’s game at Chicago, he was facing quarterbacks who dropped back an average of 31.2 times per game. When Strahan set the current mark, he did it on 35.4 dropbacks. Watt tied the mark on 36.3 dropbacks.

Perhaps most impressive this season has been Garrett’s ability to run through the tape. He is notoriously a fast starter, piling up 71.5 sacks in his career in September and October.

That figure dwindles to just 17.5 sacks in 31 December games before this year. Perhaps it’s as simple as attrition from all the double- and triple-teams he faces throughout the season, or the infection of losing. Garrett has spent his entire career on one of the most incompetent franchises in the NFL. He has only played in three playoff games, a number that won’t be increasing anytime soon. 

Throughout his career, Garrett has often been the only positive on a franchise that specializes in futility. He told no lies last February when he went on a Super Bowl media tour, ripping the Browns for all the losing and insisting their timeline to win did not align with his career peak.

He is a Maserati for the Browns to enjoy while their house falls into foreclosure.

MYLES GARRETT JUMPED OVER THE O-LINE AND BLOCKED A FG?! 🤯

(via @Browns)pic.twitter.com/kxsC9zaXO3

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 22, 2023

The question is whether the Browns will ever build a house worthy of storing their Maserati before the engine blows. Around the time Garrett was binging episodes of “The Last Dance” four years ago, he was also reading biographical books on the leadership styles of Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Both basketball stars craved championships. They obsessed over winning and were fortunate enough to play a sport where they had more control over winning and losing than a defensive end on a bad football team.

Garrett is helpless to fix an offense that ranks near the bottom of the league in nearly every category. The Browns will never win until they find a franchise quarterback. Garrett can’t help with that.

He can only continue chasing quarterbacks and history. A second Defensive Player of the Year award is all but assured at this point. Garrett’s season has been so spectacular that he might be a legitimate Most Valuable Player candidate if the Browns were within field goal range of playoff contention. Instead, he’ll continue stacking bodies on Sundays, flexing in celebration and waiting for the rest of the roster to catch up with him. 

The engine is purring. The house is in shambles.