CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Browns and New York Giants reportedly agreed to a trade that can become official when the new league year starts on Wednesday, March 13, but Pro Bowl wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. was not part of the deal.
Rather, the Browns sent veteran guard Kevin Zeitler and a fifth-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft to New York in exchange for versatile defender Olivier Vernon and a fourth-round selection in this year’s annual selection meeting.
Aditi Kinkhabawala of the NFL Network told 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland Friday that the Browns offered multiple players, including Zeitler, defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah and one more athlete, in exchange for Beckham Jr., but the Giants rebuffed the deals.
“I ran that by a long-time member of the Giants organization who laughed, and said there is not a chance and that would make the Giants a laughing stock,” Kinkhabawala reported.
There is a pretty simple reason why the Giants would be reluctant to make that deal for Zeitler, Ogbah and another player for Beckham Jr.
Over 59 games, including 56 starts, in five years for the Giants, Beckham Jr. has turned 622 targets into 390 receptions for 5,476 yards and 44 touchdowns. Beckham Jr. has averaged 92.8 yards per game, including a league-best 108.8 during the 2014 season.
Beckham Jr. has put four 1,000-yard and three double-digit touchdown seasons on his resume since being selected with a first-round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft out of Louisiana State University.
Last season, Beckham Jr. turned into a 77-catch, 1,052-yard, six-touchdown effort for the Giants.
Although the Browns could not entice the Giants enough to land Beckham Jr., they still have plenty of assets to bolster the roster through free agency and the 2019 NFL Draft.
The Browns announced Wednesday that they released veteran linebacker Jamie Collins, which took about $10 million off the books for the 2019 season and gave the organization more than $80 million in salary-cap space.
Even by taking on Vernon’s $15.25 million salary in exchange for Zeitler ($10 million cap hit in 2019), the Browns have nearly $75 million in space to sign free agents.
After agreeing to the trade with the Giants, the Browns hold their own selections in each of the first four rounds of the 2019 NFL Draft, as well as two picks from the New England Patriots (Rounds 3 and 5), two from the Jacksonville Jaguars (Rounds 5 and 7) and one each from New York (Round 4) and the San Francisco 49ers (Round 7).
