Beckham has all the tools to be 1st WR to win coveted NFL award
Awide receiver never has won the NFL’s Associated Press MVP award for a regular season. Not Jerry Rice or Randy Moss. Not Calvin Johnson or Marvin Harrison. But think about it: Odell Beckham Jr. could do it, couldn’t he? Beckham, 24, often is lauded for his record-breaking first three NFL seasons, his incredible athleticism and one-handed catches, and his breakaway elusiveness and speed. But is the Giants’ star receiver really that far away from lighting up the league and entering the 2017 MVP conversation? The stats say he’s on the verge.
And when Lawrence Taylor, the Giants’ 1986 NFL MVP linebacker, gave Beckham a Twitter shoutout on Tuesday — “Lookin good kid” — it almost felt like a symbolic passing of the torch, with OBJ wearing a throwback No. 56 jersey and those shiny “LT” earrings.
Last season in 2016, Beckham ranked fourth or higher in the NFL in seven receiving categories: targets (169, 2nd), receptions (101, 3rd), catches per game (6.3, 4th), yards (1,367, 3rd), yards per game (85.4, 4th), first downs (65), and 25-plus-yard receptions (14, T-3rd). Plus he was fifth with 10 receiving touchdowns.
Those stats didn’t put Beckham in most top 10 lists for 2016 MVP candidates, but it got him close. And then, throw in his six drops and two fourth-quarter punt return TDs called back due to teammates’ penalties, and Beckham wasn’t far off from having an explosive enough third NFL season to enter the MVP debate.
“I feel like (Beckham) could (win an MVP) just because he’s accomplished almost everything you can accomplish other than winning a Super Bowl and being an MVP in three years,” Giants punter Brad Wing, a close friend of Beckham’s, told the Daily News recently. “Being his good friend, there might be a little bias in there, but I’m a realist. I keep it real with how anyone performs. And he’s very f---ing good.
“I saw it in college, we were together for three years, I saw it there. But I didn’t really completely understand it until I got to New York and got to watch him every Sunday, and I’m watching all these cornerbacks not being able to cover him,” Wing added. “It’s tough I guess for a receiver because you have to have a quarterback to throw you the ball. But I think if there is a receiver in today’s game that is capable of winning the MVP, Odell would be in that conversation, no doubt — in my opinion.”
Wing is correct: the MVP traditionally is a quarterback’s award. Forty-one QBs have won since the Associated Press began bestowing the honor in 1957, compared to 18 running backs, one linebacker in Taylor, one defensive tackle (Alan Page, Vikings, 1971) and one kicker (Mark Moseley, Washington, 1982). Nine of the last 10 MVPs have been QBs, too, the only exception being running back Adrian Peterson in 2012 with the Vikings.
Still, with the league more reliant than ever on the pass and Beckham among the NFL’s top individual talents, it’s not out of reach if he can get his sprained left ankle healthy. A few receivers, after all, have come close.
Jerry Rice was named the 1987 Professional Football Writers of America’s Most Valuable Player at the age of 25 after catching 22 touchdown passes for the San Francisco 49ers, a league record that stood for 20 years until Moss broke it with 23 for the Patriots in 2007. But Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway won the official Associated Press MVP award in 1987, not Rice.
Rice’s blistering 122 catches, 1,848 yards and 15 TDs in 1995 then were trumped by Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre. And in 2012, the Detroit Lions’ Johnson finished with an NFL record 1,964 receiving yards and five TDs on 122 catches, but Peterson’s 2,097 rushing yards and 13 total TDs were too much.
The additions of Brandon Marshall and Evan Engram to the Giants’ offense, along with a potentially improved running game, of course could affect Beckham’s statistics in 2017 and make this argument moot.
Still, in 2016, Beckham’s greatness and MVP value wasn’t just his talent, but his ability to save the Giants’ offense from itself, to make big plays that bailed them out and won games. The defense was the team’s greatest strength, but without Beckham, the 11-win Giants would have been lucky to finish 8-8.
The missing ingredient to an MVP award for Beckham could be increased usage on punt returns. In college at LSU, Beckham returned 62 punts and scored twice, including on an 89-yard burst. And last season, his 59-yard and 63-yard punt returns for touchdowns in Weeks 12 and 15, respectively, were the types of dazzling displays that might have had MVP voters talking, if not for penalties on Mark Herzlich and Eric Pinkins, respectively, that brought the touchdowns back.
This much is certain: Beckham is capable of racking up stats that few others are.
He is tied with former LSU teammate Jarvis Landry (Dolphins) for the most catches in the first three seasons of an NFL career in league history (288). His 35 receiving TDs are the most in the NFL since his Week 5 2014 debut. The Steelers’ Antonio Brown is next with 30, followed by Mike Evans with 26 in a distant third.
Beckham’s 95.9 receiving yards per game average is the second best in NFL history, behind only the Falcons’ Julio Jones (96.3). And he is the only player in NFL history to record at least 80 catches and 1,000 receiving yards in each of his first three seasons. And Beckham needs just 55 catches to pass Anquan Boldin for the most receptions ever by a player through his first four years.
Frankly, there would seem to be nothing missing from Beckham’s individual resume — well, nothing except being the first wide receiver ever to win the league’s official MVP award.
But that’s as of September 2017. Check back in six months. It could change.