Cleveland Browns: 3 reasons Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry might be split up in 2021

In 2021, the Cleveland Browns might not have both OBJ and Jarvis Landry

When the Cleveland Browns added Odell Beckham, Jr. ahead of the 2019 season, fans started to get excited about what that could mean for the offense. Not only were the Browns adding a player who is capable of putting up elite numbers, but he was being reunited with his good friend and college teammate, Jarvis Landry.

The two LSU products had developed into top-tier NFL wide receivers and they were about to work together for the first time in the pros. On top of that, they were expected to have huge success with a hot young quarterback throwing them the ball in Baker Mayfield.

Unfortunately, it’s been two years and we have yet to see the excitement come to fruition. In 2019, the offense was held back by Freddie Kitchens and this season, OBJ suffered a torn ACL which knocked him out during the first drive of Week 7.

And now with us entering the offseason, there’s a chance we could be seeing the end of OBJ and Juice playing together in Cleveland. Here, we look at three reasons why one of the two could be gone before 2021 kicks off.

3. The cap dollars

The first thing that anyone thinks of when discussing the possible splitting up of Juice and OBJ is the money — and rightfully so. When looking at the Cleveland cap situation, the top two names when it comes to salary in 2021 are Beckham and Landry.

OBJ is set to count for $15.75 million in 2021 and Landry is at $14.75 million according to OverTheCap.com. That’s a grand total of $30.5 million being paid out to one position. Sure, we can argue that both players are special but there are also legit concerns heading into the season.

For Beckham, he has yet to truly click with Baker Mayfield and if we are being honest, the entire offense looked better without him. On top of that, he’s had several injury concerns throughout his carer, and that only gets magnified with his torn ACL. Landry also struggled with health this season and while he still has never missed a game due to injury, he did decline in every meaningful statistic during the 2020 campaign.

Now, throw those concerns into a pot along with the fact that they can move on from Beckham with no dead money and 100 percent savings and that Landry can be moved with only a $3 million hit and an $11.75 million savings and it becomes even more likely that at least one could be gone.

Cleveland is currently sitting at $17 million under the cap, and they need some money to make any moves. Plus, general manager Andrew Berry and chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta are both big-time analytics guys who are all about saving money, which makes a forthcoming move even more likely.