If the team does end up trading Odell Beckham Jr, it’ll come as a huge admission that the original move to acquire him was a mistake but why move him now?
The Cleveland Browns management didn’t confirm nor deny that anyone was off-limits to be moved during a recent presser of sorts and that got people wondering about the future of certain players on the team. None more discussed on sports talk radio than Odell Beckham Jr. The Browns will have a lot of decisions to make this offseason but none more important than the status of Beckham.
There are already rumors that stretch back to the last season that Beckham wants out of Cleveland. So if he does want out, or the team wants to move on, what would be the reasoning to keep Beckham? There isn’t much of one, other than what he could do. That’s the situation that Browns fans need to keep in mind, is that over the last three years he’s been a disappointment for both teams he’s played for. He’s been oft-injured and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. If he’s now become a malcontent and demanding to be moved, the team should absolutely move him. He’s been problematic wherever he goes.
The team can still get something back from him. Maybe not two first-round picks, or even one, but you could probably get a group of thirds or seconds for him. Maybe even pull off a first and fourth if you the Browns throw in a third with Beckham. Fans may not like the decision but it’s now going on four years since he was last really seen as a true playmaking wide receiver.
There are arguably five reasons that the team may look at when evaluating a trade involving Beckham, so let’s take a look at them.
(*To play devil’s advocate, tomorrow there will be a ‘5 reasons to keep Beckham’ article.)
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.
Still can’t stay out of trouble
Legally, Beckham hasn’t run afoul with anything yet, that we’re aware of. Yet Beckham has a tendency to be in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Whether it’s screaming at his coaches, laying in bed with women and doing lines of ‘white stuff’ and overall giving the New York Giants a serious concern over his maturity level. Even his friend Landon Collins admitted the team saw Beckham as a problematic personality. Something Beckham seems to be struggling with in Cleveland after just one year here.
During his lone season so far with the Browns, Beckham again had issues with the coaching staff, actively shouting at them during games. Then there was his childish approach to his gear. From wearing gaudy watches on the field and knowingly wearing cleats not approved by the league, and even wearing a visor that needed to be removed. All things NFL players are told at length to keep in mind before the season and games even start. Clearly this was Beckham not caring about the rules.
Then there was his whole LSU incident. He’s handing out money to players that could get them in trouble, and then he’s slapping grown men on the butt without their consent and all the while no one is checking him on his behavior. Let’s be clear, this is a man who feels the rules don’t apply to him. If he were on any other team, every other fan in the comments would think this man is a total diva and someone who could kill a team. So many people think Baker Mayfield shooting a few commercials in the offseason is this huge distraction.
Yet those same fans will say Beckham is ‘misunderstood’. Beckham is a walking distraction. Beckham isn’t the same player he was and is a continual embarrassment over just the dumbest stuff. It’s only a matter of time before he gets himself in real trouble.
I can’t wait to read his fanbase excusing him then.
Get draft picks from him
He wasn’t a huge difference-maker last year, and this team has more holes than swiss cheese to fill. Getting a first and even some day-three picks aren’t the worst of ideas. Heck, I’d take a second, a fourth, a fifth and a seventh for him at this point. Let him be someone else’s headache.
The draft picks would be a godsend with how much work needs to be done still at this point to rebuild this team. Let’s be clear, this team shouldn’t blow itself up, because it was already blown up after the 2018 season ended. Key players in the passing game (Duke Johnson), the pass blocking (Kevin Zeitler) and the secondary (Jabril Peppers) were sent packing and the team regressed. It then signed and drafted players that just didn’t replace the production and efficiency lost.
The team needs to pull some starters from this upcoming draft class, as well as some reliable backups. The team under John Dorsey let way too many people leave who would’ve been viable for this team long term, and that type of damage can’t be undone in one off-season. They could put on a competent product without Beckham in 2020, they did just that in 2018 but the positions of need for this team need to be addressed as cost-effectively as possible. Eventually, the big names on this team will need new deals, so getting cost-effective replacements, starters, backups and more from this draft needs to be paramount.
Trading some guys, namely Beckham, to get those holes addressed would be a prudent and wise business move.
Free up cap space
Quick, Myles Garrett and Nick Chubb need new deals. You can either keep both of them or Beckham, who are you letting go? That’s a question the Browns may need to deal with in the coming years. Myles Garrett will more than likely be looking for J.J. Watt numbers ($15 million a year at least) and Nick Chubb has earned himself (if he stays healthy) at least $9-10 million a year. Beckham will make around $15 million next year, and that money could easily go elsewhere if he continues to play mediocrely.
Beckham has had three straight down seasons for a variety of reasons. He’s simply not worth his deal any longer and anyone being honest with themselves agrees with that statement. According to Spotac, Beckham was the 3rd highest-paid wide receiver last year. He didn’t even play like the best wide receiver on this team, let alone one of the best in the league. So why should the Browns allocate funds for Beckham when they have better players at their respective positions who are going to need to be paid?
A guy who gets paid like Beckham should be the clear cut number one receiver on any team he’s on and he’s simply not. Jarvis Landry is the Browns’ best receiver, not just in stats but in actual gameplay footage. Landry and Mayfield just have better chemistry, with Landry being more consistent over the last three years than Beckham.
You could make a case that if Beckham were to take less, which he’d never do, and renegotiate his deal that he’d be someone the Browns would absolutely want on a reduced salary. Except he’d never take less money before his deal was done, and even if he did agree to that, the headaches aren’t going away. It’d just be best to sign other players to extensions and walk away from the deal that New York foolishly gave an injury-plagued asset.
Declining play
The apologists for Beckham will tell you that he played with Eli Manning and Baker Mayfield and that it’s totally not Beckham’s fault that his numbers dropped off in years four, five and six, compared to his first, second and third seasons. They’ll tell you that Mayfield is just a bum (he’s not) and that Manning couldn’t get him the ball (except he could). They’ll fail to acknowledge that his play was all about his athletic, daredevil type of play. Play that took a toll on him and made him take a pounding physically.
Play that left him dealing with injury, after injury, after injury, after injury. Here Beckham is again, eight weeks into 2020 and he’s already had surgery to fix a “core” issue he was dealing with all season. So his ankles are shot, his hip and thighs are shot, and now his core is shot. Oh, he’s also had neck and back issues. Yeah, but you’re right, he’s still totally capable of being the same player he once was.
Prologue injuries don’t affect athleticism at all. Nope (sarcasm).
Beckham may still be a reliable 1,000-yard receiver, that’s entirely still possible. It’s just not likely. With each passing year, and the amount of wear and tear on him, it’s far more likely that he’ll be lucky to break 1,000 yards, let alone 1,400 or 1,500 like he used to. He’s just not as nimble or quick as he used to be. Nor can he take sustained banging across a full season.
He’s playing well enough that if he were just a second option, on a mid four or five million dollar deal, and wasn’t a headcase or a problematic player, then this wouldn’t be a question. He’d be perfect. Yet, that’s not the situation. Beckham is over-paid for his production, he is unreliable as a person to make smart decisions, he is prone to injury and he is someone who has had his play decline. Be it by bad quarterback play or injuries that affected his physical attributes.