When Browns wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. lines up on the outside, defenses should probably not use press coverage against him. Nobody beats press coverage better than Beckham has over the last several seasons.
Matt Harmon of Yahoo Sports created a metric for receivers several years ago called Reception Perception. Harmon tracked the success rate of getting open and winning against the coverage versus press man coverage for every receiver. The throw doesn’t have to go to the receiver to factor in.
Since Harmon began tracking the data in 2014, Beckham had the very best season of any WR against press. He did it that first year, with an incredible 86.7 percent success rate while facing press coverage over 30 percent of the time. Two other Beckham seasons with the Giants also made the top five, with 2018 in 4th and 2016 in 5th.
Harmon’s charting is done for fantasy football purposes but it shows how well Beckham thrives against press coverage in real-time football, too.
Browns fans didn’t get to see Beckham at his best in 2019. No. 13 played through a painful core muscle injury that required surgery after the season, one that robbed him of his explosiveness. Now healthy, Beckham should get back to being the best WR in the game against press coverage.