Odell Beckham Jr. is now the highest paid receiver in the NFL. Did this catch anyone by surprise? No chance, right? He was always going to get paid. Sure, the Giants “toyed” with the idea of trading the receiver this spring, but asking for two number one picks in exchange for a player about to get paid handsomely means you’re not actually looking to trade him. Beckham was always going to be a Giant.
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And the fact that his deal is under the twenty million per year average generally reserved for quarterbacks surprised me — not because I think he is worth that number, but because I thought the Giants might overpay him. Beckham is inarguably one of the best receivers in football, and teams have no problem paying for point scorers. When the Chiefs overpaid Sammy Watkins (who’s not a point scorer) this spring with a three-year, $48 million deal, Beckham was in the driver’s seat. And he showed incredibly good faith by agreeing to a deal that works for both parties in a timely fashion. I applaud him.
Now comes the hard part: what does the future hold for the Giants with Beckham signed to a mega-deal and four other players on this season’s roster, not counting Beckham yet, making over $10 million, thus accounting for $62 million of the team’s cap? It’ll be worse in 2019, when the Giants will have five players over $10 million, which will amount to almost 85 million. (And again, that does not count Beckham, as his contract is not currently on the books.)
The Beckham deal tells me one thing: the Giants are banking on Eli Manning’s ability to bounce back and play at a high level for the foreseeable future. And they better hope they’re right about their QB, because things could get quite complicated if they’re not.
The hardest thing to do in any sport is evaluate your own talent correctly. It might sound easy, but in reality, it’s damn hard — damn hard for professional teams, damn hard for little league teams, damn hard for any team. That’s partly because we all have a bias in our talent evaluations. There are times when we all believe what we want to think, and suffer from the “Endowment effect,” a term they use in psychology and behavioral economics. The Endowment effect is a belief that people ascribe more value to things merely because they own them. Giants President John Mara owns the Giants, so naturally, he entered the 2018 season with one apparent belief — that his team was not a typical 3-13 team. He looked past the win-loss record over the last five years (33-47) and rationalized that, despite coming off a disastrous season, his team was still more like the 2016 11-5 team than the team that picked second overall in this year’s NFL Draft.
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Mara seemingly forgot that the Giants’ 2016 season was their only winning season in the last five years. Or that quarterback Eli Manning has been rapidly trending downward in almost every category. This decline includes the playoff ‘16 season, where he was nearly a full yard less on his yards per attempt than the 2015 season, when the Giants went 6-10. In 2017, Manning only had 12 completions for over 20 yards all season. The year before that he had 22, and that was with Beckham, the now highest-paid receiver, on the field. There has been nothing found on tape or in analytics to suggest that Manning will bounce back from this decline. And yet, Mara is clinging to the hope that Manning is still a great quarterback. His offseason moves and decisions were built around that belief.
Even though Mara interviewed several general manager candidates after firing Jerry Reese in December of 2017, he knew that he wanted someone from the Giants School of Thought, someone who would not blow up the organization. And so he hired longtime Giants personnel man Dave Gettleman. When Mara and Gettleman interviewed prospective head coaching candidates, they were not talking about rebuilding, only repairing the Giants. Which is a polite way of telling prospective coaches that Manning is our man. Once Mara set the course for repairing the organization, nothing was going to alter the plan. The Giants ignored the fact that their thirty-six-year-old, two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback is nearing the end and didn’t draft his replacement with the second overall pick in a draft full of quality QB talent.
And now, as the Giants enter 2018 with Beckham signed, their offense does indeed look to be vastly improved on paper and on tape. It’s enhanced by formation diversity — former head coach Ben McAdoo utilized one back and one tight end almost exclusively — and by better players on the line and a big-time running back, Saquon Barkley, to go along with a healthy Beckham and other recievers. But the key to the Giants regaining their playoff form is for Manning to return to the 2011 version of himself. That’s the version when he averaged 8.4 yards per pass attempt, which was by far the highest in his NFL career. He has only averaged 7.5 per yards attempt or higher twice in his entire career. (By contrast, the Chargers’ Philip Rivers has done it eight times.)
The Giants’ plan for immediate success all comes down to Manning. If they’re right about him, then they’ll be competing with the Eagles for the NFC East title and the LA Rams, Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, Carolina Panthers and others for the NFC championship. If they’re wrong, though, and Manning continues to regress, then they’ll have to rebuild from ground zero next year, and Beckham’s contract might prove to be an issue.
Now, you might say that if Manning is gone, the Giants will have tons of cap room and can afford Beckham. That would be right only if — and this is a big if — the Giants can secure a talented quarterback in the draft for low economic value, as the Cowboys have done with Dak Prescott or the Eagles and Rams with Carson Wentz and Jared Goff. What if they can’t? What if they have to go the Kirk Cousins route and overpay during free agency? And think about it — how often are above average quarterbacks available? Rarely. And how happy is Beckham going to be when the Giants don’t have anyone who can get him the ball? You already know the answer to that question.
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Had the Giants drafted USC’s Sam Darnold or any other of the other top quarterbacks in this year’s draft, they could have possibly had Manning’s replacement already in-house for cheap, thus hedging their bet that Manning is in decline and making the Beckham deal more manageable to handle. I understand it’s hard to be critical of a player who has won two Super Bowls for the organization, but numbers don’t lie, and results don’t either. And the primary job of any top executive is to protect the team’s present and future success.
The NFL is in an “arms race,” and so many teams have young quarterbacks who are ready to take the league by storm, from Jimmy Garoppolo in San Francisco to Deshaun Watson in Houston to Carson Wentz and Dak Prescott in the Giants’ own division. A team counting on the longevity of an aging star instead of finding a future stud is going to ultimately get left behind.
The Patriots are in a similar situation to the Giants — they didn’t hold on to Garoppolo, and instead are hoping they can continue to get the best out of 41-year-old Tom Brady, with no clear long-term plan for when his era ends. The most significant difference between the teams, of course, is that unlike Manning, Brady has not declined in the last five years, and has led his team to five straight Conference Championship games, and two Super Bowl wins. You cannot ignore the results when evaluating quarterbacks.
The Giants could have chosen to protect themselves on draft day. I have no doubt that Barkley is going to be a great player, but running backs are always readily available and in order to maximize the actual value of the Beckham deal, having a quality starter at quarterback for the next five years is essential. Now, the Giants’ future rest solely in the hands of their 37-year-old quarterback, and the Giants brass better be right about him — they bet a great deal ont it.
More contract news…
The Patriots signed guard Shaq Mason to a five-year deal valued at 50 million, which according to all reports is below the market for guards. Or is it? When JR Sweezy signed his $32.5 million dollar deal with the Bucs in 2016, he received a “market deal.” The only problem was he earned just $14 million of the contract and never saw the remaining portion because he was released. Sweezy is now back with the Seahawks, earning $1.5 million per year.
Yes, Mason did take a below average per year deal on the surface. However, Mason will earn all of the $50 million and still be young enough to get another bite of the apple. He will get all of the fifty — and never have to worry about moving, or learning a new system. And in Mason’s case, would you rather have a taste or the entire apple?
Free agency when it comes to the NFL is not like baseball or basketball. Each team operates different schemes and techniques, and those differences require players to learn something new. When an experienced player has to change how he plays, it can often lead to problems that result in his new team being unhappy with his overall performance. The teams then feel they “overpaid” for his talents based on his output. Once this occurs, the player is sent packing, never earning the full contract. Mason took the safe option of choosing to stay with the system and scheme he has learned and perfected.
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For a player that was not invited to the NFL combine and who was selected as the second guard after Tre’ Jackson of Florida State by the same team in the same fourth round, he has overcome a great deal to receive this contract. Mason is incredibly talented, one of the most athletic guards I have scouted, and his toughness along with his intelligence make him a natural fit for the Patriots. When he arrived on the team, he was raw and had zero idea of how to pass block. This wasn’t his fault, as he was rarely asked to pass block at Georgia Tech. All he needed was to be molded and taught, and once he learned the skill set, he then could apply his athletic talents and improve, which he did quickly and effectively. Mason leaving the Patriots and learning a new way of doing things would have been a little risky, even if there was a huge number involved. With his skill set, I’m confident he could do it, but why take the risk?
Next time you evaluate a deal, look at the total number and not simply the average. Don’t fault Mason for taking a lesser deal, applaud him for getting fifty million for sure.
(AP Photo/LM Otero)