Why it makes excellent sense for Cleveland Browns, OBJ to renegotiate his contract
So how good is OBJ, really?
He’s pretty good.
OBJ played hurt 16 games with an injury requiring surgery in 2019, with torn core muscles that limited his effectiveness, and he still gained over 1000 yards in the Freddie Kitchens offense. Only a Pro Bowl-caliber receiver could do that. I don’t think I could sit at my desk with torn muscles in my gut, and there he was playing NFL football week in, week out for the Cleveland fans. Incredible.
The results were not super impressive, unfortunately. Nobody was thrilled about 6-10 or “only” 1,000 yards. But if you think about what actually happened in 2019, Beckham was incredible.
2020 was not as impressive, however. OBJ did not have great stats in the Kevin Stefanski offense through six games (plus two plays in game seven versus Cincinnati), but neither did Baker Mayfield. Everybody who knows anything about football knew it would take time to get things in sync, so it should not be about the panic button at that point.
To think that the three-time Pro Bowler was never going to figure it out is foolish. Nor should it be concluded that he was the cause of bad team performances versus Baltimore and Pittsburgh. His six-game stint in 2020 included the Pittsburgh and Baltimore debacles, so of course, his numbers looked a little sparse. They were not horrible. Good not great.
Talk show radio way overreacted, but there were problems in the Browns’ schemes related to Beckham. At times Mayfield held the ball too long hoping to get the ball to him. At other times, OBJ’s patterns seemed to be not as precise as they needed to be for Mayfield to hit him reliably.
When Rashard Higgins went in for him, Mayfield started throwing balls about six inches off the ground rather than going for over the shoulder catches that were more susceptible to being intercepted. Those are legitimate issues that need to be worked on by the players and the coaching staff. But to think that those issues can never be fixed, or that improvement is impossible, is utterly ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the idea that the team is better off without him. OBJ is a 1000 yard receiver, and those players do not grow on trees.
He does need to modify his game to fit Stefanski’s offense. What OBJ does best is go out for the bomb and make the spectacular one-handed catch. He’s absolutely the greatest receiver this fan has ever seen at that particular play. The problem, however, is that the over-the-shoulder bomb is just inches away from an INT, and the Browns do not need that play five to ten times a game.
The Browns want ball control, and they want passes that do not result in INTs. The play that OBJ was injured on was a deep ball that went awry. He needs to improve his patterns and do more of the things that Jarvis Landry and Rashard Higgins already do.
Chances are very high that OBJ will recover from his anterior cruciate ligament surgery and be very close to his superstar self. In 2021, he will still be only 29 years old and still in the prime of his career. It would be fair to say that he has not been a serious candidate for the Pro Bowl in a few seasons, whereas earlier in his career he was automatic.
Beckham can make it back to the elite level. To do so, he needs to make fewer sensational catches rather than more of them. The Browns need more of the “routine” ball-control, possession-type catches because that is what really terrifies the opposing defensive coordinators.