New York Giants: Is Odell Beckham Underrated?
By Zac Wassink
Is it possible that New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. is actually somewhat underrated?
Those in charge of marketing for the National Football League know the league has a gem in New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.. Beckham is featured in national advertising campaigns. The second-year pro has already been on the cover of a Madden video game, and Beckham even defeated the so-called “Madden Curse” in that he posted tremendous numbers despite being on last year’s game cover.
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Anyb knowledgeable individual who follows the NFL realizes Beckham has the goods to be special. Is it, however, possible that some are underrating Beckham heading into the start of the 2016 regular season?
The question stems from a piece posted by Chris Wesseling of NFL.com earlier this week. That article suggests Beckham is eighth overall on the list of the “most valuable non-quarterbacks entering the 2016 season.” Fellow WRs Antonio Brown (6th on the list) and Julio Jones (7) and also New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski (2) are all ahead of Beckham on the list.
You won’t get much an argument from me over Gronkowski being placed ahead of Beckham. Gronkowski is the best tight end of his generation and will go down as one of the best to ever play the position. Those who would consider putting Beckham over Gronkowski would likely do so because of Gronk’s injury history. That’s understandable, but it’s also unfair to a player who has participated in 30 regular season games over the past two years.
The NFL.com piece refers to Beckham as “the greatest pure athlete in the league,” and it also mentions how Beckham broke records and had the best first two seasons of any WR in NFL history. That article continues:
"What makes Beckham so special? Let’s start here: vertical explosiveness, incredible leaping ability and hang time, improvisational creativity, mid-air dexterity, rare suddenness, easy separation, ability to play every wide-receiver position and run a full route tree, humongous suction-cup hands and world-class athleticism."
Why, then, wouldn’t Beckham be mentioned as the top WR in the NFL today?
Antonio Brown is a phenomenal player and probably the top home-run hitter at the WR position in all of football. Selected in the sixth round of the 2010 NFL Draft, Brown has to be considered one of the best draft steals of the past decade. Brown has, in the past, led the NFL in receptions and receiving yards, and you can reserve a spot for him on All-Pro squads every year he is healthy.
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It should not be ignored, though, that Brown has played on better overall teams than Beckham since the fall of 2014. There are also the obvious questions that must be asked.
Does Brown have better hands than Beckham? Can Brown go up high into the air, hang there and beat defensive backs to the football as did Beckham time and time again over the past two seasons? Can Brown play every WR position?
Would you draft Brown over Beckham if you were a NFL general manager?
It’s silly to compare Brown and Beckham to Julio Jones, meanwhile, because Jones is a different athlete and a different type of player. Jones, who has five NFL seasons under his belt, is 6-foot-3, four inches taller than Beckham and roughly five inches taller than Brown. Just like you cannot teach size, however, you also cannot teach Beckham’s athletic gifts. Jones may — may — be the better finished product today, but Beckham is closing that gap and fast.
Odds are that you’re aware Beckham broke records set by Randy Moss during Moss’ first two seasons in the NFL. You remember Beckham’s incredible catch versus the Dallas Cowboys from November 2014. You’ve witnessed Beckham’s warm-up routines that involve him making one-handed grabs as if he’s catching a baseball with a glove. Maybe you saw, thanks to Jordan Raanan of NJ.com, that Beckham is the top WR in the NFL as it pertains to after the catch production.
Beckham is only 23-years-old. He is theoretically several years away from being in his physical prime and from being a more-mature version of the player who added his name to record books even though he missed a total of five regular season games (four because of injury and one because of suspension) in his first two campaigns.
What is Beckham’s ceiling?
Say, for the sake of argument, that Beckham does not improve past what he was for the majority of 2015 and that he is not downed by a significant injury between now and his 30th birthday. In this hypothetical scenario, Beckham averages over 93 grabs and 12.5 touchdown receptions per season. Those types of numbers are good enough to reserve Beckham a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Why, though, should anybody believe Beckham won’t continue to improve through the end of the current decade?
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Beckham has the luxury of playing alongside Eli Manning, the best quarterback in the history of the Giants and a man who will be enshrined in Canton at some point in the future. The chemistry enjoyed by Beckham and Manning is visible to all who have watched the two play together. That chemistry isn’t magically disappearing, and Manning still has at least a couple of solid years left in the tank before his body begins to betray him.
The truth of the matter is that you can’t go wrong with any of the four offensive weapons mentioned earlier in this piece. Gronkowski, Brown, Jones and Beckham all make any team in the NFL better. All four start for every team in the league.
Maybe the better questions are these: What would be considered to be a breakout season for Beckham?
130 receptions? 16 touchdowns? 20 TD? Does Beckham need to play in a meaningful January game to jump ahead of Brown and Jones? What would make Beckham the best pound-for-pound WR in the NFL?
Or is he already there in your eyes?