FOR BLUE, IT TAKES TWO
ORLANDO — Wednesday’s flood of fluctuating trade prices for Odell Beckham Jr. reflected an active and competitive dialogue between the Giants and other NFL teams.
The Giants have asked teams for at least two first-round picks in a trade for Beckham, sources told ESPN, which means the club is 1) continuing to talk to teams and listening to OBJ trade offers and 2) smartly trying to exercise the leverage gained when more GMs entered a bidding war.
In a negotiation, you never lead with the bottom-line offer you’re willing to accept; you shoot higher and leave room for compromise to ensure you get what you need at minimum — especially if demand justifies a greater ask.
The Giants’ new publicized asking price is steep, though, even for a player as talented as Beckham.
“That’s a lot to give up,” one NFL coach told the Daily News on Wednesday.
Because while OBJ is a world-class talent, the GM who hypothetically wins this sweepstakes will have to sign Beckham to a lucrative, long-term contract extension with significant guaranteed money on top of parting with the draft assets it takes to acquire him from the Giants. The GM will also be taking the risk of that investment — which clearly gives the Giants significant pause — off their hands.
So it wouldn’t be surprising if this were a tactic by the Giants to draw initial lowball offers back into their preferred territory of a “first-round pick plus,” the starting price the Daily News first reported on Monday.
For not long after ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the Giants’ asking for two first-round picks, he estimated that Beckham’s final trade price would land in exactly that neighborhood: a first and third-or-fourth-round pick. Other reports reiterated that the Daily News’ “firstround pick plus” price, or perhaps slightly less, could get it done.
NFL Network also reported that a team had taken a stab at trading for Beckham on the cheap right after his viral video with pizza and potentially drugs had hit social media in early March. Again, the Giants’ response to any idea they’ll sell Beckham on the cheap is naturally to fire back with a high price to make sure they get value.
It’s always possible one team bites. Schefter said a third team contacted him and said if the price was two firsts, then they might want in, too.
So the Giants don’t have to rush this. They can wait all the way up until the NFL Draft on April 26 to trade Beckham if they wish — especially since there is precedent for NFL teams trading two first-round picks for wide receivers who were talented but not as special as OBJ.
In February 2000, the Cowboys acquired Seahawks WR Joey Galloway in exchange for Dallas’ 2000 (19th overall) and 2001 (seventh overall) first-round picks. Seattle took Alabama RB Shaun Alexander in 2000 and the next year traded down two slots with the San Francisco 49ers and took N.C. State WR Koren Robinson at nine.
In April 2000, the Buccaneers got Jets WR Keyshawn Johnson and sent back two 2000 first-round picks (13th and 27th overall), giving the Jets four firsts in that draft. The Jets drafted South Carolina DE John Abraham and West Virginia TE Anthony Becht, respectively, with the Bucs’ picks.
Funny enough, four years later the Bucs and Cowboys swapped Johnson and Galloway in another deal.
More recently, in April 2011, the Falcons acquired the Browns’ 2011 firstround pick (sixth) to draft Alabama WR Julio Jones, and in return Atlanta sent five total picks back to Cleveland: the Falcons’ own 2011 first-rounder (26th), a 2012 first-rounder (22nd overall), a 2011 second-rounder (59th) and two 2011 fourth-rounders (118th and 124th).
The Browns traded the 2011 firstrounder and 2011 fourth-rounder, drafted Oklahoma State QB Brandon Weeden 22nd overall in 2012, and took UNC WR Greg Little (59th) and Stanford RB Owen Marecic (124th) with the others. And finally, in an expensive trade that didn’t include two firsts, in March 2013 the Seahawks acquired WR Percy Harvin from Minnesota and gave the Vikings their 2013 first-round pick (25th), a 2013 seventh-rounder (214th) and 2014 third-rounder (96th) in return. The Vikes used those picks on Florida State DB Xavier Rhodes, UNC guard Travis Bond and Georgia Southern RB Jerick McKinnon, respectively. So it’s
happened before. An NFL GM has traded two firsts in the past for a receiver. And it could happen again. All it takes is one team. But it won’t necessarily require two first rounders, either.
For the question is, as the Giants continue to have significant conversations with teams about trading Beckham, is this really about if they trade him anymore, or is it actually now just about when?