How Long for the Cleveland Browns and Odell Beckham, Jr.?

The Cleveland Browns improved their team by acquiring Odell Beckham, Jr., who is an odds-on threat to make the Hall of Fame, but for how long?

The Cleveland Browns improved their team by acquiring Odell Beckham, Jr., who is an odds-on threat to make the Hall of Fame, but for how long? Right now everyone is all smiles and pledging undying loyalty to one another, but there are reasons why it won’t last forever.

There can be no doubt that this was a stupid trade for New York in the short run. Good grief, why are the Giants paying $16 million in salary cap charges in order that the Browns can acquire this player? But just because it is stupid for New York does not necessarily mean that it is a great trade for Cleveland, especially in the out-years.

Whenever a team trades away present-year resources for future-year resources, the team gets killed in the press. Jon Gruden of the Raiders, you will recall, was the biggest idiot in team history for daring to trade away Khalil Mack last year. Now, however, the Raiders look like they are ready to have an enormously successful draft, much like the Browns had in 2018, and Gruden is smart again.

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The concept of “fair value” seems to have been ignored. If you sign a player as a free agent, that means the other teams felt he was not worth that salary. So in theory, once he’s at that level other teams would not pay more to get him in trade. The Giants signed OBJ to a five-year extension at $90 million, or $18 M/year, which was scheduled to kick in starting in 2019.

Now, however, they trade him to the Browns who will pay $77 million over for 5 years ($15.4 million/year), which is only slightly below fair value. Logically, the Browns should have given the Giants something worth only a few million dollars over five years and it would be a wash. However, somehow OBJ’s psychological value has increased to the point that the Browns were willing to not only pay his salary but also trade a first-round draft pick as well as a good player in Jabrill Peppers.

The Giants fell on their sword and absorbed $16 million worth of signing bonus in 2019. But in 2020, they will be paying only about $1.9 million for Peppers and $2.4 million for the 17th overall draft pick (plus an additional salary of the 3rd round pick they receiving).

By not paying OBJ, it means they will have over $12 million per year to spend on other players, depending on the ultimate fate of Peppers. That first round pick and the extra dollars could add up in a few years, so the Giants might recover from their loss in a few years to some extent.

But if we want to credit General Manager Dave Gettleman for engineering a long-range recovery plan from OBJ, he is also the guy responsible for extending OBJ in the first place. For that reason, it is a titanic disaster for him.

While the discount of having the Giants pay Odell’s bonus money is appreciated, there are some downstream risks to the Browns. He and his agent, Zeke Sandhu, have no doubt observed the successful ploy of Antonio Brown in demanding a renegotiated contract from the Steelers and ultimately forcing a trade. If OBJ has a good year, Sandhu will want to renegotiate. To keep him happy, he will have to once again become the highest paid receiver in the NFL or close to it. This is probably going to be trouble downstream.

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What is so terrible about OBJ that the Giants felt the need to take a $16 million dollar hit in order to get rid of him? There doesn’t seem to be anything major. He likes to trash talk and fight with defensive backs, and he draws penalties for over the top TD celebrations. He also loves to complain and talk to the press and speak his mind. Accordingly, he has criticized the team, management, quarterback Eli Manning, and worst of all the CIty of New York.

It’s not good that he does these things, but other star wide receivers seem to have the same mindset. Hall of Famer Cris Carter of Fox Sports is hilarious when he caricatures the wide receiver mentality (“I only care about two things, Coach–ME, and MY MONEY!”), but there’s a certain amount of truth to that.

It may not be possible to coach superstar wide receivers to behave like a boy scout. You have to coach them as well as possible to limit their eccentricities, but it is hard to understand why the Giants think they need to spend big dollars to give him to Cleveland. Make him run laps or something, but why spend $16 million to give him away?

Mike Golic of ESPN often makes the point that when you award a guy a huge multimillion dollar contract, that does not result in changing his personality. We know who OBJ is, and he is not going to change just because he is playing with the Browns and is reunited with his LSU teammate Jarvis Landry.

Cleveland fans, could you handle it if OBJ goes off on Freddie Kitchens or Baker Mayfield or the City of Cleveland? If so you’ve got the chance to see a future Hall of Famer at work for a few years. Or would you want zero tolerance of off-the-wall behavior, in which case OBJ will probably be out of here sooner rather than later?

Intuitively it makes sense to go for the best player and the immediate advantage, which is what the Browns have done. On the other hand, the OBJ contract pushes them significantly above the annual cap and forces them to use carryover dollars to feed the 2019 cap. Something will have to give in two or three years. OBJ may not be here forever, especially if he and his agent feel the need to keep pace with Antonio Brown and other mega-star wide receivers. Three years would be a long time.

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The Browns appear to have won this trade in the short run, but 3-4 years down the pike we might have a different viewpoint, particularly if Giants draft a good player with that 17th overall pick. On the other hand, one Super Bowl would justify everything.

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