Odell Beckham Jr. trade sends a viable MVP candidate to a new home

The New York Giants had better be right about Odell Beckham Jr. because the club traded away a true NFL MVP candidate to the Cleveland Browns in his prime.

The dust has settled. What’s done is done. The New York Giants shocked the football world, not to mention numerous members of the club’s passionate fan base, by trading superstar wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. to the Cleveland Browns.

While nobody will know, for sure, which entity won that trade until years down the road, you wouldn’t have to search far and wide to locate analysts, journalists, observers, and supporters crushing New York general manager Dave Gettleman for a decision that ended an era which never really began at MetLife Stadium.

Criticisms of Beckham are public knowledge. Injuries coupled with a one-game suspension resulted in the dynamic playmaker appearing in 59 contests during his five-year Big Blue tenure. That candid and, now, infamous ESPN interview where he didn’t go to bat for quarterback Eli Manning when given an opportunity clearly didn’t sit well with Giants ownership or the team front office.

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Following the trade, SNY’s Ralph Vacchiano reported one source told him Beckham “had become too much of a pain in the a–,” whatever that means.

Beckham’s New York stint was filled with highs and lows, the type of roller-coaster ride one would expect from a No. 1 receiver oozing with Hall of Fame talent and an outspoken and eccentric personality. He broke team and league records, and also offered a no-show playoff performance at Lambeau Field. He worked to return from injury ahead of schedule in 2017, but was part of only one winning season. His Giants legacy is complicated this spring.

It’s a legacy based largely on unfulfilled potential, something not entirely Beckham’s fault. Okay, so that Miami “boat photo” that preceded the playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers looks worse than ever this offseason — New York has gone 8-25 since somebody snapped the picture, per Dan Benton of Giants Wire — but one off-day flight to South Beach doesn’t sink a stable franchise.

The 2016 season was Beckham’s finest to date, not necessarily in terms of individual statistics but in overall team contributions. In short, it’s a football crime he wasn’t more of an MVP candidate for all he gave a Giants side that won 11 games and, on a different day with a little more luck, could have advanced past that playoff showdown with Green Bay.

The Giants had an NFL rushing attack in name only that fall, finishing 29th in the league in yards gained on the ground, per ESPN. Not one person in the New York backfield earned 600 total rushing yards. Beckham repeatedly put the offense on his back, sometimes seemingly against its will, and turned defeats into victories.

Beckham’s detractors would have you ignore the Giants sat at 2-3 on Oct. 16 when he completed a 66-yard journey to the house on a fourth-quarter fourth-and-1 and sparked a six-game winning streak. They conveniently forget Beckham’s two touchdowns against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 9, his multi-score outing at the Browns, the nightmares he gave the Dallas Cowboys in Week 14 and his win-clinching touchdown the subsequent Sunday.

It was after New York’s home victory versus the Cowboys when rumblings arose among those looking for a sleeper candidate that Beckham may have been the league’s most valuable asset that holiday season. Per ESPN Stats & Information:

"The Giants are 5-3 in games in which Beckham has a score of 60 yards or more, including 3-0 this year. Two of the touchdowns this year were game-winners in the fourth quarter of games in which the Giants won by less than four points."

Of course, Beckham didn’t win MVP that year. Quarterbacks take those trophies home. Odds are Baker Mayfield, not Beckham, would receive the nod and votes if the Browns become as good as advertised either in 2019 or 2020.

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The risk for Gettleman, New York ownership and the organization, as a whole, isn’t that the club didn’t receive enough in return for Beckham in the trade with the Browns. That was always unlikely. Beckham is 26 years old, meaning he probably hasn’t yet reached his ceiling as long as he remains healthy and fully motivated playing for the Dawg Pound. The Giants traded an MVP-worthy player entering his prime.

How many regimes survive such a decision for longer than two years, at most?

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