Odell Beckham Jr.’s season is over. The Browns star confirmed that he tore his ACL on Sunday against the Bengals (Twitter link via ESPN.com’s Josina Anderson). 
Beckham is in his second season with the Browns, and he has yet to live up to expectations in Cleveland. He finished with 1,035 yards and four touchdowns last year, respectable numbers, but easily the worst in his career for a full season. His name has continuously popped up in trade rumors, with the team emphatically shooting down the latest round of speculation just a few weeks ago.
His production so far this season has been relatively disappointing, as the Browns have transitioned to a run-first offense that doesn’t have Mayfield chuck it too much. He didn’t top 81 yards in any of the seven games he’s played in, and outside of one three-touchdown outburst has been mostly quiet. After being forced out early from Sunday’s game, he’ll now be forced to put a lid on his season.
Cleveland traded first and third-round picks, as well as safety Jabrill Peppers and offensive lineman Kevin Zeitler for Beckham and pass-rusher Olivier Vernon back in March of 2019. Beckham is signed through the 2023 season, and there’s no easy escape hatch for the Browns. He’s set to earn $15.75MM in total compensation with $12.971MM guaranteed for injury. That’ll transition to a full guarantee if he’s on the roster the third day of the league year in the spring.
The Browns are 5-2, but they’ll have to forge ahead without their most talented offensive weapon. There should be more targets headed towards Jarvis Landry, Rashard Higgins, Donovan Peoples-Jones, and Taywan Taylor. The Browns may also look to install one of their practice squad receivers on the 53-man roster – either Ja’Marcus Bradley or Elijah Benton.
He was fun to watch for a few years. But bad QB’ing and worse teams wore on him. He’ll be on 1-2 year deals from here on out, merc style.
He was a modern day Merton Hanks
Wow tough blow. He was such a good WR. Rest in plush ODB. Thoughts and prayers
What is he going to do now….he can’t play football and he cannot throw money at LSU players….guess he just needs to take a boat trip
Why do I feel like they are going to be better without him.
Texans are having A potential wide receiver yard sale. Stills and Fuller deals end this year.
Interesting article Zac. You act like he is a bust in Cleveland. Playing with Cleveland alone will make you a bust. How many coaches in and out and playing with Baker Mayfield and his ego. I am not at all an OBJ fan and his antics but hard for anyone to be help accountable in that train wreck. This is the first year they have had a coach.
But I thought he was built different?
ODB has a Kyrie Irving quality to him
People love to hate OBJ (some of it he’s brought on himself, some of it is football media and fans loving to hate receivers with big personalities), but between injuries, offensive play callers (certainly before this year), and QB play/protection, he’s been dealt more than his share of lousy luck in his career.
I honestly think this is the best thing for Baker, it will let him go through his reads instead of looking for OBJ all the time. And it showed yesterday, First pass to OBJ is forced, interception and OBJ goes down. After that Baker played a really clean game and looked like old baker.
Browns can cut him at end of season with no cap hit, right?
it seems like he’s been $hit on ever since he got traded to Cleveland!