The Giants are Lowballing OBJ and Will Live to Regret It
Source – Josina Anderson of ESPN reports that the Giants have offered [Odell] Beckham less than $16 million per year.
If that’s the new-money average, it would put him out of the top five at the position, led by Steelers receiver Antonio Brown at $17 million per year. Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans comes in second at $16.5 million, Texans receiver DeAndre Hopkins makes $16.2 million, as does Rams receiver Brandin Cooks. Fifth on the list is Chiefs receiver Sammy Watkins.
It’s unclear whether that’s the Giants’ final position. It’s possible that it’s an opener or something close to it, and that Beckham’s camp views it as an insult — and has opted to leak the number to the media in order to put pressure on the team to do better.
Chances are it’s the latter; that the Giants have room to move but that Beckham and his agent believe that there’s no way the Giants will get to where they need to be if they’re starting south of $16 million annually. Last year, Beckham said he wants to be the highest-paid player in the game, a bar that now sits at $30 million in annual new money.
Holy moly did the Giants make an awful business decision here. Just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad business decision. Even if you want to defend them by saying this is just an opening offer and it can be negotiated up, you don’t go into business talks with a price this detached from reality. If someone’s asking for $500,000 for a house, you have to offer them something somewhere in the range. You don’t make an opening bid of “I’ll give you two dollars, and … a Casio.”
Not if you’re serious about getting a deal done. Especially with a mercurial nutjob like Odell Beckham, Jr. And here’s the thing. If OBJ thinks he deserves to be the highest paid wideout in football, he’s not wrong:
It might take an oversized ego for a wideout to think he deserves to get paid more than any quarterback, left tackle, defensive end or corner in the game. But it takes balls the size of planetary gas giants to sit there at a negotiating table with these numbers in front of both parties and suggest the guy at the top of all these categories deserves to be the fifth highest paid at his position. Especially when the guy you’re talking with is part of that unique breed of NFL animal, the Diva Wide Receiver. (Wide ReDiva? I don’t love it. I’ll keep working on it.) Negotiating with guys like him is like dealing with a teenager. They look for every opening for the chance to turn the tables and make it all about you. Every sentence begins with the second person pronoun. You’re the one who’s yelling. You didn’t say when I had to clean my room. You just attack me the second I walk in the door. You don’t give me any credit for getting that grade up to a D. You’re offering me less money than Sammy fucking Watkins. And the Giants walked right into it like a bunch of first time parents.
This isn’t Kirk Cousins, happy to accept as many Franchise Tags the Redskins could throw at him because he was prepared to gamble on himself and plenty willing to get more money, guaranteed, than he would ever get on the open market. OBJ has been the face of the Giants since the minute they drafted him. The most talked about, celebrated and even controversial athlete in New York. And when you lowball a guy like that, you do so at your peril.
And just to be consistent, I stand by what I’ve said many times. That in this NFL, wide receiver is the most overrated, overpaid position in all of sports. That generally speaking in the 2000s, teams built from the football-out, with low drafted players UDFAs and cap-friendly free agents at WR, win championships (the Giants, Seahawks, Ravens, Patriots). And teams built from the sidelines-in draft in the Top 10 every year. Because the position simply doesn’t have that much impact. (Calvin Johnson, who was arguably the best receiver since Jerry Rice, played in just two career playoff games. With almost 300 yards receiving and two touchdowns. And hist team lost both.) So philosophically I’d never pay Beckham what he wants. But that’s just me. Somebody out there is dying to pay him. And if the Giants think he’ll happily sit there and sign his Franchise Tag for two years, work hard, patiently wait his for his chance to be the highest paid in the game and not try to destroy the team from within, then they’re living in Fantasyland.