As of last Sunday, receiver Odell Beckham Jr. was ready to visit the Jets on Monday. Then, suddenly, the Ravens signed Beckham -- with no visit to the Jets.
So if the Ravens hadn’t moved so quickly to close the deal, what would have happened?
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com reports that the Jets made Beckham a “very competitive” contract offer. Frankly, that wasn’t what we heard. We heard it was something in the general range of $5 million guaranteed with potentially significant incentives.
The Ravens guaranteed Beckham a whopping $15 million for 2023, with up to $3 million in incentives that don’t require Herculean achievements to get the money.
Really, if it was that close, why didn’t Beckham make the visit? Common sense suggests that the Ravens’ offer was so much better than the Jets offer that there was no reason to go.
As explained earlier this week, OBJ instantly becomes the No. 1 receiver in Baltimore. In New York, the Jets have Garrett Wilson and Allen Lazard. They’ve also added Mecole Hardman. There’s no way they could have or would have justified paying $15 million to Beckham, especially with nearly $60 million eventually going to Rodgers in 2023 cash.
Basically, the Ravens made Beckham an offer he couldn’t refuse. An offer he wouldn’t refuse. An offer he wouldn’t even jeopardize by going to New Jersey for a meeting he knew wouldn’t yield anything close to the cash he got from the Ravens.
