One publication sees the Giants as clear winners. Our Jeff Risdon sees it a little differently from Cleveland’s perspective.
Now that Odell Beckham Jr. is back at Browns camp and ready to roll with a surgically repaired knee in 2021, it’s apparently time to reflect back upon the trade that initially brought the talented wide receiver to Cleveland. Entering the third year after the blockbuster trade, it’s a fair time to look at the deal with some hindsight.
The details of the deal, which went down in March of 2019:
The Browns sent a 2019 first-round pick, a 2019 third-round pick and safety Jabrill Peppers to the Giants for Beckham. The Giants selected DT Dexter Lawrence and EDGE Oshane Ximines with the draft picks acquired in the trade.
While it’s commonly thought that Kevin Zeitler and Olivier Vernon were part of the trade, that was a separate transaction between the Browns and Giants.
Here’s how ESPN and analyst Bill Barnwell broke down the trade this week,
At the time:The Giants were almost universally blasted for trading Beckham, only weeks after general manager Dave Gettleman had dismissed trade speculation by saying, “We didn’t sign [Beckham] to trade him.” OBJ was dealt months after signing a five-year, $90 million extension, with the Giants paying him $20.5 million for his final 12 games in a Giants uniform. I saw this as a clear victory for the Browns, who were getting a franchise wide receiver locked up for years at a below-market price.
What happened:Beckham’s first two years in Cleveland have been a major disappointment. An uneven first season under Freddie Kitchens saw him go from being the king of slants to producing the league’s worst EPA on slant routes in 2019. Beckham was then off to a slow start in 2020 before tearing an ACL. Baker Mayfield‘s numbers were better across the board without OBJ in the lineup, and while correlation is not causation, the Browns simply didn’t miss him during their run to the postseason.
While the Giants haven’t replaced Beckham in the lineup, they’ve gotten more out of the players on the other side of this trade. Peppers hasn’t been the sort of game-disrupting safety scouts might have expected from his time at Michigan — and he doesn’t play the more valuable free safety role — but he’s a solid strong safety and a team leader. Lawrence has been the best player in this trade, living up to expectations as a stout run defender while adding four sacks last season. Peppers and Lawrence might have been replacements for departed veterans in Landon Collins and Damon Harrison, but they’ve held up their end of the bargain. Beckham hasn’t in Cleveland, and four years removed from his last Pro Bowl appearance, it would be a surprise if he was a No. 1 receiver in 2021. This one has flipped all the way around for Gettleman and Big Blue.
In hindsight:Win for Giants
The knee injury Beckham suffered last year probably does tilt the scales on the trade in New York’s favor after two seasons. Dexter Lawrence is a pretty darn good young lineman, equitable to what Sheldon Richardson did in Cleveland, and the Giants have found a good use for Peppers after he was horribly miscast in Gregg Williams’ bizarre Browns defense. Ximines has become the Giants version of Nate Orchard, so that knocks down the New York buzz some, too.
Beckham remains an obsession with some in the New York media, oddly enough. He’s still above-the-fold news in the sports pages there, more than he is in Cleveland most of the time. He’s matured, settled down and emerged as a valuable and supportive teammate. Everyone close to the Browns knows that, but that fact escapes many folks outside Northeast Ohio who are simply pot-stirring with the polarizing, eccentric and attention-sensitive Beckham.
That’s not to say Beckham has been perfect. He’s not for everyone, and that includes some Browns fans. The players see that he’s doing it to try and win above all else, however.
The story isn’t done yet, either. Beckham projects as the starting wideout and top receiving threat on a viable Super Bowl contender in Cleveland. Lawrence and Peppers start on a Giants team coming off a 6-10 season. New York just paid Kenny Golladay the same money they were paying Beckham — $18 million per season — to finally replace Beckham in their lineup. Having covered both Beckham in Cleveland and Golladay in Detroit, I’ll be polite and say the Browns have the better player and one more apt to live up to the contract.
Then there’s the intangible meaning of the trade and how it helped spark Cleveland. Going out and aggressively acquiring a premium talent like Beckham indicated the Browns, then-GM John Dorsey and (more importantly) owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam were truly serious about improving the team. It was a jolt of positive energy and tangible excitement to the Browns players that the team believed they were close enough to breaking through to make such a move. Anyone who has spent even 10 minutes at the team facility in Berea can still feel that two seasons later, too.
The Giants did what they needed to do regarding Beckham, and they should feel good about their return. Their defense is a good one, and the haul they got in return for Beckham plays a big role in that success. But the Browns desperately needed what Beckham brought to the team in terms of star power, credibility and big-play potential. His ongoing durability issues outweigh the 1,000-yard season he chalked up in 2019 nationally, and that is a fair critique of the Browns’ return on the trade.
Beckham has to play a full 16 games in 2021, or prove a dynamic force in a playoff win, for the scales to tip to the Browns to “win” the trade. But it’s not like the Browns should be considered as “losing” the trade. That’s simply not what has happened with Beckham in Cleveland.
