Breaking News: Odell Beckham is set to be released

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, klos63 said:

To some extent, weren't the same concerns there when we traded for Diggs?

 

To a slight extent perhaps...But as Rocky Landing said, Never threw a tantrum, never badmouthed his team or coach on social media, never beat up equipment on the sideline.  Odell Beckham, all of the aforementioned.

 

And, Diggs seasons before the trade,  - he was Productive with a capitol P, high catch %, >1000 yards.

 

Beckham has been catching just over 50% and was not productive last season.  Much can be forgiven to a Diva who makes good.

[Alphadawg7]

6 hours ago, SlimShady'sSpaceForce said:

No F’in way does he sniff Buffalo 

unless it’s the airport 

 

He’s Toxic 

you deserve a week “vacation” for that 

 

🤮

I don’t think he lands in Buffalo either.  But I learned a long time ago that nothing is off the table with Beane.  

[Thurman#1]

6 hours ago, billsfan89 said:

Unless the Bills have multiple long term injuries at WR I don't think they will have any interest. The Bills can't claim him off waivers as it would be a 7.25 million dollar cap hit. I doubt because of that fact that anyone will claim him off waivers. I suspect that KC, NOLA, and possibly Green Bay will be interested on a minimum deal. It will be interesting to see where exactly he goes and what impact he has. 

 

 

Be interesting to see if he does get claimed off of waivers. I'd guess he won't but it's possible. If he doesn't, I'd guess we at least call and kick the tires. Don't think it would actually work out, though.

 

I'm curious what the perspective on him is within the league. Do they put most of the blame for his ineffectiveness on Mayfield/the Browns? Do they think he still has most of his skills at 29? Do they think he's toxic or just high-maintenance? It'll be fun to watch.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

6 hours ago, Rocky Landing said:

Character issues are a deal breaker for McD/Beane. That is how they went about building the current winning culture in Buffalo. Intrinsic to the type of character that they require is a team-first mentality. It's crystal clear that OBJ is the antithesis of that. OBJ coming to Buffalo is a non-starter, IMO.

 

 

It's not all character issues that are deal breakers for this group. It's certain kinds of character issues. They're keeping Beasley, they at least kicked the tires on Antonio Brown. It'd be interesting to know whether Beane feels Beckham's character issues are beyond what they could accept. 

 

My guess is that they are, that they don't want him. I'm not that sure of it, though. I don't think anyone can be.

[ExiledInIllinois]

5 minutes ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Be interesting to see if he does get claimed off of waivers. I'd guess he won't but it's possible. If he doesn't, I'd guess we at least call and kick the tires. Don't think it would actually work out, though.

 

I'm curious what the perspective on him is within the league. Do they put most of the blame for his ineffectiveness on Mayfield/the Browns? Do they think he still has most of his skills at 29? Do they think he's toxic or just high-maintenance? It'll be fun to watch.

For sure!  He will peak to 32!

 

Good article:

 

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1683775-when-does-age-catch-up-to-nfl-players

 

"Wide Receivers

We think of receivers as being volatile, but their performance chart is actually one of the most sane and stable:

The eerily flat floor, I suspect, is partly due to the minimum qualifications of 14-plus games started and 30 receptions. That said, besides a small jump from year one to year two, the peak and average AV for receivers is basically just as flat.

From year two to year 10, the typical production of starting receivers basically doesn't change. There's an upward trend in the peak AVs, but that's it.

Year 10 begins a steep, steady decline in peak AV and a rise in average AV. This is the same effect we've seen before: Mediocre starters are stop playing, and the remaining elites are showing their age.

From Year 14 on, the small sample size starts making things squirrely. Also, there's the Jerry Rice Effect to contend with: He was so very good for so very long, the last three data points are all him.

If we go by age, the effect is even more pronounced:

Again, a big jump from year one to year two, then shockingly similar production until top AV peaks at 32 and begins a steep decline. Average AVs get a big bump as the decent starters fall off, but then they decline as well. After age 38, it's all Jerry Rice.

Let's take a quick look at the age distribution:

Remember the old saw about receivers taking a big jump in their third year? It's the truth. Even though the receivers good enough to start right away start out at nearly great and climb from there, there's a massive jump in qualifiers from year one to year two, and then from year two to year three.

The ensuing decline is much more gradual with receivers than backs."

[Thurman#1]

7 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Um...aren't we winning now?  How would this guy put us over the top, in the games where we have not won?

 

 

 

 

In the Steelers game that we lost, Allen went 30/51 for 270 with one TD. Had two fumbles, though he only lost one. Can we be sure another guy getting open woudn't have helped, maybe putting us over the top? One TD would have made the difference in that game. Yeah, the OL was a major problem, but if they could have thrown a few quick hitters to Beckham with the CBs playing off, would that maybe have made a difference?

 

Against the Titans our passing was better, but if it had been even better yet, couldn't that have made three points worth of difference, maybe?

 

Jesus I feel like that damp rag Tucker Carlson, "I'm only asking questions." Sorry about that, but you asked the questions, and I think it's legit to say that your questions don't appear to me to have obviously negative answers, and that it's possible that he could indeed improve our passing offense if he came here and got open a lot.

 

NOT that I expect this to happen. I don't. But I think it's slightly possible if things came together just right on money and availability and if Beane would be willing to bring him in.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Thurman#1

[Nihilarian]

Let's not forget that ODB Jr was supposed to be the savior of the Browns as they gave the NY Giants a 1st and a 3rd round pick, along with S Jabrill Peppers.

 

His pay, 15.7 mill per, and 12.97 MM guaranteed for injury.  

 

The simple truth looks to be that ODB Jr isn't the same guy that played back in 2019 when he first arrived in Cleveland.

 

Played only 7 games in 2020 due to injuries, torn ACL. 

 

Everyone remembers that one handed grab on the sidelines for the Giants when they think of him. Sadly, it looks like that guy is gone. 

 

2014 TDs 12

2015 TDs 13

2016 TDs 10

2017 TDs 3

2018 TDs 6

2019 TDs 4

2020 TDs 3

2021 out of 6 games played, 0 TDs

 

Perhaps ODB Jr is still somewhat injured and the Browns staff doesn't want to focus their attack with him because they don't think he will hold up to that much play time?  

 

In 2021. ODB Jr didn't play in the first two games against the Chiefs, Texans. 

 

Bears, 9 targets, 5 receptions, 77 yards, 55.6%

Vikings, 7 targets, 2 receptions, 27 yards, 28.6%

Chargers, 3 targets, 2 receptions, 20 yards, 66.7%

Cardinals, 8 targets, 5 receptions, 79 yards, 62.5%

Broncos, 6 targets, 2 receptions, 23 yards, 33.3%

Steelers, 1 target, 1 reception, 6 yards

 

The Browns are a run first team with some very good RBs in Chubb, Hunt. Cleveland is the #1 rushing team in the NFL, #1 in rush yards, #1 in rush TDs, #1 in yards per attempt, #3 in attempts.

 

Their two TEs in Njoku, Hooper have more catches in 20, 18. Even Hunt has 20 receptions and all their catch percentages, 83.3% for Hunt & Njoku and Hooper at 64.3%. 

 

 

 

[Nihilarian]

That week one loss to the Steelers, 51 passing attempts vs 25 rushes for Buffalo. Allen had 9 of those rushes for 44 yards.

 

The game turned on a special teams blocked punt for a TD by Pittsburgh. 

 

Still...https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.com/2021/9/15/22673641/film-room-how-the-pittsburgh-steelers-pass-rush-thwarted-the-buffalo-bills-without-blitzing-tj-watt

 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

9 hours ago, klos63 said:

To some extent, weren't the same concerns there when we traded for Diggs?

Digs was “Labeled” a malcontent.  
 

OBJ is a malcontent.  
 

a small difference 

 

see Yolo’s tweet from Breer

 

Quote

Diggs posted on 3/16/20: "It's time for a new beginning" (Details: https://si.com/nfl/2020/03/23/tampa-bay-buccaneers-scout-tom-brady-diggs-hopkins-trades…). That sparked interest, and by that night Diggs was off to Buffalo w/a package centered on a first-rounder going back to Minnesota for him.
 

 

[JMF2006]

Revisiting the Odell Beckham Jr. trade, it's clear now the Giants fleeced the Browns (msn.com)

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/revisiting-the-odell-beckham-jr-trade-its-clear-now-the-giants-fleeced-the-browns/ar-AAQmGtj?ocid=uxbndlbing

 

In March of 2019, the New York Giants traded Odell Beckham to the Cleveland Browns. In return, the Giants received first- and third-round picks in the 2019 NFL draft, along with safety Jabrill Peppers. 

It might be hard to remember now, but the immediate reaction was fairly slanted in one direction: Giants general manager Dave Gettleman got screwed. The Browns got Beckham, the star receiver of their dreams. End of story.

Funny how much a few years can change perspectives.

Gettleman was pilloried for what he received in the deal and the trade itself. Just weeks earlier, when asked about the swirling Beckham trade speculation, Gettleman snapped back: "We didn't sign him to trade him." Beckham's five-year, $90 million deal was signed less than seven months earlier.

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Semantics aside, Gettleman was being dishonest. Yes, of course they didn't sign him to trade him. In August 2018, they signed Beckham to keep him. But well before March, Beckham had done enough — or not enough, depending on your perspective — to convince the Giants they'd made a mistake with that extension.

So the context of the trade, if you were wearing Giants royal-blue-colored glasses at the time, was that the team couldn't have gotten more in return for Beckham because of the contract. That part of the value exchanged was the idea that Cleveland was inheriting a lot of money on a deal the Browns didn't broker.

That's not an unreasonable perspective. Look at the Matthew Stafford and Von Miller trades that went down this year. The Rams had to pay up for Stafford, draft-pick-wise, for the Lions to take on Jared Goff's contract. The Rams also had to give up second- and third-round picks to Denver for biting a big chunk of Miller's 2021 salary. 

But a funny thing happened along the way with the Beckham trade. Compelled to revisit that deal in light of Beckham's unceremonious release by the Browns, and even with the financial consideration, the Giants appear to have made out like bandits.

What the Giants got in return

The 2019 first-round pick the Giants received turned into defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. The 2019 third-rounder became pass rusher Oshane Ximines. Both players, along with Peppers, remain on the Giants' roster. Beckham was cut early Friday morning after a contentious spell with the Browns.

None of the player the Giants received are stars. Lawrence is the best piece, an oversized run stopper who has given a little more pass-rush juice than many imagined. Ximines opened some eyes as a rookie, was a ghost in 2020 and has started to flash a bit this season. 

Peppers hasn't carved out a significant role with the Giants, but head coach Joe Judge recently spoke highly of the hybrid safety and endorsed the idea of the team bringing the impending 2022 free agent back next season.

In the three-for-one trade, the Giants received more warm, useful bodies to help them. They also rid themselves of the Beckham drama they knew all too well that the Browns hadn't yet experienced firsthand. 

 

Video: Rapoport explains why Browns released Odell Beckham Jr. (NFL)

Play Video

Rapoport explains why Browns released Odell Beckham Jr.

Click to expand

Now they know.

There's also a bit of an offset value in this trade that must be mentioned. The Giants allowed Landon Collins and Damon Harrison to depart in free agency that year, and Peppers and Lawrence were in essence their replacements. That on one hand limits their value.

© Provided by Yahoo! Sports New York Giants general manager Dave Gettleman was ripped for the Odell Beckham trade at the time but has come out a few years later looking smart for it. (Photo by Zach Bolinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

However, doing so tilted the Giants' compensatory-pick formula in their favor and helped net them an additional third-round pick, plus two seventh-rounders, in the 2020 draft. With those picks, they also got offensive tackle Matt Peart, cornerback Chris Williamson and linebacker Tae Crowder. Of the three, only Williamson didn't stick with the Giants.

Time allows us to call this one. The Giants won this trade, even if none of the players they landed had anywhere close to the talent or potential value Beckham did at the time.

Even having to pay Beckham $20.5 million for the final 12 games of his Giants tenure feels like collateral damage at worst now.

Giants' deal was also addition by subtraction

Even if there was justifiable criticism for Gettleman suffering sunk-cost losses and returning what looked to be about three quarters on the dollar in return for Beckham, history has proven he made the right call.

Gettleman's run as general manager isn't above reproach elsewhere. He has done plenty of things — or failed to do things — that have hurt his team's chances for success. Likewise, there were plenty of missteps under former Browns GM John Dorsey. His replacement in 2020, Andrew Berry, can't boast a perfect record. Still, since the Beckham trade went down, even for his lack of production, the Browns have a cumulative record of 22-20. They were 8-29-1 in the three years prior to 2019.

The Giants, meanwhile, are 12-28 since the start of the 2019 season. They were 19-29 in the three years prior, even making the playoffs once. It's hard to argue they're headed in the right direction on the whole.

 

And even while allowing that there's not too much farther to fall from 12-28 — only five other franchises have had worse records over that span — the Giants unquestionably saved themselves a giant headache by offloading Beckham, even with the timing of the deal hurting their return and not resulting in more team success.

 

© Provided by Yahoo! Sports The Giants realized their mistake with Odell Beckham, even after signing him to a $90 million deal, that they had to trade him in 2019. 

 

Start with this: Imagine if they kept him. Imagine if they'd have released Beckham, just as the Browns were forced to this week, and gotten nothing in return. That would have been unquestionably worse.

 

Whether the Giants knew this was bound to be Beckham's fate with the Browns is a trivial note. It's possible the Giants braced for Beckham having success on a rising Browns team where he was surrounded by talent. Now that point is moot, and the Giants have been spared of that burden.

What's clear now is that the Giants realized Beckham wasn't going to be a net positive, even with his immense talent, on their roster. Whatever value he added on the field at that time — this being prior to his 2020 ACL injury, plus his 2021 shoulder injury and the subsequent team drama he stirred up in Cleveland — just wasn't going to make it worth their while to keep around.

 

So the deal serves as a potent reminder for multiple parties on the matter of NFL trades:

Instant trade analysis is great, and there's an obvious purpose for it. But there's always more value in waiting to assess which team got the better end of the deal, based on how things shake up down the road, even while factoring luck into the deals.

 

Sometimes a team doesn't need to receive back, dollar for dollar, what it perceives to give up in any trade. For every touchdown he scored, every 100-yard game or every highlight-reel grab. he hauled in, Beckham's value to the Giants was no longer going to be a net-positive one, at least in their eyes. 

They felt they had to move him, even at a lesser tangible return because they properly evaluated that his intangible effect was always going to trump whatever he produced for them. So through that lens, the Giants getting what they could for Beckham was the right call.

 

Team success aside, the Giants were big winners here. Had you suggested that possibility a few years ago, the idea would have been laughed off with scorn. 

Now it's the inconvenient truth. And it serves as warning for whatever team that might be considering signing Beckham: They had better know what they're getting into and protect themselves accordingly if they do go down that road.

[klos63]

10 hours ago, Rocky Landing said:

No

There definitely were concerns about Diggs

[Rocky Landing]

13 minutes ago, klos63 said:

There definitely were concerns about Diggs

The "same concerns" there would be for OBJ? There really weren't. The only concerns came from Vikes, and Bills fans who were buying into the media trying to make a story out of it. But all of the behavior that makes OBJ a legitimate concern-- the tantrums, the calling out of team, and teammates, the poor relationships with QBs, all things that go back to his time with the Giants-- are things that Diggs did not display, and Beane, and McDermott were confident in his character.

[Just Joshin']

Assuming he still has talent, some posters here are confusing talent collection with team building.  He may have more talent than the receiver cut (JK) to make room but the team will be worse because of what he does, not the talent he brings.

 

He is the anti-poster for process.  

[aristocrat]

Dude owns more nfl records than any of our wide receivers. I’d almost guarantee he ends up on the chiefs though. 

[HappyDays]

 

[Pete]

what are chances Odell clears waivers? 

It would be funny (but unlikely) if Giants put claim in.

[L Ron Burgundy]

AB worked out in Tampa, this could work for the team that takes a chance.  It will probably end up being Vegas but if he looks good on tape this year I hope the Bills take a look.  Not positive I'd take the chance but at least consider.   

[Pete]

I don't want ODB from what I gather.  It seems those videos posted with ODB wide open- ODB broke off routes and wasnt where he was supposed to be.  That was the problem with Giants.  That is very telling IMO

Edited November 6, 2021 by Pete

[folz]

Not Beane/McDermott material/DNA. Not a position we need help at. Not good for team chemistry. Has missed 42 of his last 80 games due to injury. Has only scored 16 TDs over the last 5 seasons. And although a good portion of this is due to being injured, over the last 5 season, he is averaging 40 yards/gm and 644 yards and 3.5 TDs per season. Do you really want to pay top dollar for that production?

 

[To be fair, I will include his averages for only the games he played---which is less than half of the games---over the past 5 years. So, for the games he played, he is averaging 65 yards and 0.35 TDs/game. Or prorated to a 16-game season, that would be 1,040 yards and 5.6 TDs. Not bad, but how much do you want to pay for that production knowing the problem child he is and that he can't stay healthy---you may only get half of that production per year).

 

Plus, there was the Giants/Bills game a few years back where twice in the game, he threw a sucker punch at a Bills player (didn't get flagged for either of them of course) and then ran and hid behind his offensive linemen when the Bills players looked to retaliate. Punk.

 

And you can't compare OBJ with Diggs. Diggs made one little stink when he wanted to get traded, but then bucked up and played hard anyway. Everyone in Minnesota liked Diggs (except maybe Cousins), they all said he was a great teammate, worked hard, etc. There were never any incidents before that. OBJ has been a mess from the  day he walked in the league. Multiple issues every season of his career. It is non-stop diva stuff with OBJ. Diggs never played Diva, he just wanted out of Minnesota.

 

I want nothing to do with OBJ. And I don't think the Bills would seriously entertain the idea.

[Herc11]

How does this view that he's not McBeane material keep popping up?

 

McBeane went after AB for God sakes. Give up this stupid idea as to being the reason why the Bills wouldn't pursue him.

 

And, NO, I do not want OBJ and his drama on the team. But I do think if McBeane saw him as a valuable talent upgrade, they would go after him for the right price.