Cleveland Browns: 5 reasons to trade Odell Beckham this off-season
By Chad Porto
Never going to be this valuable again
Beckham is someone who’s made his entire name off of the fact that he’s ultra-athletic. What happens to undisciplined wide receivers who begin to get hurt and lose elements of the only thing that made them stand out among their contemporaries? They slow down and eventually lose their mystique. Over the last three years, and even early in his career, Beckham has been plagued by major injuries that have affected his play.
A lot of Browns fans will sit here and say “Well, who was his quarterbacks/head coaches/double teams, blah blah blah” to justify the numbers. Yet, he’s missed time, he’s been injured, he’ll be injured again and on top of all that he just doesn’t look like the same player that he once did. This isn’t a new revelation, it’s been going on for three years. His reliability is gone. Most people, however, still see him as the player from 2014 through 2016. They’re not seeing him for who he is, only who he was.
If the league still thinks he can regain his old form after years of being injured, then you better make sure you can flip him for something now before everyone becomes hip to the soon-to-be 28-year-old with chronic lower limb injuries. You may not recoup half of what you gave up to get him, (a Pro Bowl-caliber safety, a first and third-round picks) but you might be able to get a first-round pick from him in the back half of the draft.
The team needs depth at wide receiver and with him on the team, it wasn’t like it made the offense any better. In fact, the passing offense was better the year prior, and that’s because there wasn’t an overt need within the offense to get the ball to any one player. When you have two Pro Bowl wide receivers with attitudes, there’s pressure to make sure they get their catches. It’s within the realm of possibilities that Baker Mayfield and Freddie Kitchens had to adjust their game to cater to the demands of the receivers, which may have been partly why it looked like they were forcing the ball to them more than needed.
It’s also possible that there was just no one else open at all. Either way, Beckham has more value today than he does after another go-around with the injury bug. So cash out while you can before his value as a player potentially bottoms out.