How Odell Beckham Jr. could make a Super Bowl difference again
On November 5, 2021, the Cleveland Browns announced that they were releasing star receiver Odell Beckham Jr. The Los Angeles Rams signed Beckham to a one-year deal on November 11, and Beckham was a major component in the Rams’ Super Bowl run. After some early miscommunications, Beckham fit like a glove in Sean McVay’s offense, and with Matthew Stafford as his quarterback. Beckham caught 48 passes on 70 targets for 593 yards and seven touchdowns from Week 10 of the 2021 season through Super Bowl LVI.
His 17-yard touchdown pass in the Super Bowl was conclusive proof of his explosive potential. Beckham took cornerback Mike Hilton to the end zone with 6:26 left in the first qarter, and Hilton had no shot.
However, Beckham left that game in the second quarter with a torn ACL, and we haven’t seen him in a uniform since. Now a free agent, a healthier Beckham is considering interest from several contending teams with receiver deficits, and he’s about ready to make up his mind.
Per Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network, Beckham will visit the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys after Thanksgiving to see how deep their interest is.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the teams said to be most in the mix are the Cowboys, Giants, Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers. All playoff contenders, and most with a real need for more explosive plays in the passing game.
Assuming that Beckham comes back as the player he was before the ACL injury, here’s what he has to offer to the winner of this particular sweepstakes.
(All advanced metrics courtesy of Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise indicated).
Beating zone coverage.
(Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports)
Beckham is able to use his route acumen, cutting quickness, and downfield speed to make life very difficult for defenses playing him in zone coverage. Last season, both with the Browns and the Rams, Beckham had 34 catches on 61 targets against Cover-2, Cover-2, Cover-4, and Cover-6 for 516 yards and two touchdowns. That was with one team kicking him out the door and another trying to get him up to speed as quickly as possible.
Six of those catches were explosive plays of 20 or more air yards. Defenses like to play certain kinds of zone coverages to try and limit those explosive plays, but Beckham is able to take any kind of coverage error, and make everybody pay for it. This was the case against the Green Bay Packers in Week 12, when he burned cornerback Rasul Douglas and safety Adrian Amos for 54 yards.
The Packers were in Cover-4, and the Rams were in empty — which they are a lot. Amos had to read both Beckham and Cooper Kupp to his side, which is not a lot of fun. Amos guessed inside and underneath to Kupp, leaving Douglas on Beckham one-on-one, and Beckham pressed that leverage with a wicked in-and-up. This is how you beat coverage aligned to stop a side of your passing game.
Beckham can also be sneaky in his releases, which creates additional issues for zone coverage concepts. Here, in Week 19 against the Arizona Cardinals, Beckham released late on the bunch left alignment to the boundary, and with both Kupp and Van Jefferson testing that defense to the inside, Beckham had all kinds of free space.
Turning man coverage into a problem.
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
Not that you were better off dealing with Beckham in man coverage last season — he caught 20 passes on 34 targets against Cover-0, Cover-1, and 2-Man for 262 yards and two touchdowns. Beckham was especially effective with crossing routes against man in which he could use his acceleration after the catch to burn any defense. This 40-yard play against the Cardinals in Week 14 was proof of concept, as 38 of those yards came after the catch.
The Rams were flooding their trips receivers to the middle of the field from the left side, which gave Beckham a clear path on the shallow crosser to the other side. Cornerback Robert Alford started out tight on Beckham to the right slot in Cover-1, got caught up in the middle, and that was that.
Even if you’re plastering and bracketing Beckham, he’ll still find a way to get free. The 49ers tried to lock him down in Cover-1 in the aforementioned NFC Championship game, so Beckham worked his way out of the clutches of cornerback Emmanuel Moseley, underneath safety Talanoa Hufanga. Matthew Stafford was able to hit Beckham for a 13-yard gain on third-and-9 from a compressed pocket because he had faith in Beckham’s ability to create leverage in short areas.
Winning in the red zone.
(Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)
No matter how good your offense is, you’re always looking for more answers in the red zone. Beckham isn’t the NFL’s most physical receiver — he’s not going to bully opposing defensive backs as an A.J. Brown or D.K. Metcalf would. But he’s able to dominate in contested situations because he’s so quick to release, and he times his jumps and highlight grabs so well.
On this four-yard touchdown against the Cardinals in the wild-card round, Beckham was Stafford’s backside iso receiver against cornerback Marco Wilson, a fourth-round rookie from Florida. Wilson did his level best here, but he also got a bit too hung up on creating inside leverage, and forcing Beckham to the boundary. This allowed Beckham to exploit that hesitation with the nicely-timed jump. If you’re half a step late with Beckham, you might as well be a mile behind.
Beckham was good for eight catches on eight targets from the opposing 10-yard line and in last season for 35 yards… and six touchdowns.
Could Beckham be the Super Bowl difference for the second straight season?
(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Again, this is all based on Beckham being the same player he was before the ACL injury, but he suffered a torn ACL in 2020, and last season proved that he was just fine once fully recovered. So, let’s assume the best. In that case, Beckham has the wherewithal to drastically improve the offense he joins in all kinds of ways. He forces defenses to align to him unless you have a supercollider like Cooper Kupp, and most teams don’t.
Beckham’s ability to win against every type of coverage, and in most contested-catch situations (as long as he’s not asked to box guys out) make him a force multiplier as soon as he’s in the playbook and on the same page with everybody else. This is why he’s so in-demand, and why the team signing him this season should have better odds to win it all.
More than Beckham will have to go right for any of these contenders to win it all in February, but a receiver of Odell Beckham’s caliber certainly makes that trip easier and more pleasant.
