CLEVELAND, Ohio — If the Browns are 100% committed to Baker Mayfield — and all signs say they are — they should let Odell Beckham Jr. seek a trade.
During Sunday’s 38-6 loss to the Ravens, Beckham and Mayfield picked up where they left off last season, connecting on only three of 10 targets for 22 yards, second-lowest yardage output in his career.
The disconnect is still there, and it’s real.
Beckham once again offered time on task as the solution, but the season is upon us, and there’s no time for that. The Bengals are coming to town on Thursday night and it’s another pivotal AFC North game. An 0-2 start is almost a kiss of death for making the playoffs.
“Obviously, Sunday wasn’t what we wanted … but more game reps will be the way to go,” Beckham said on a Zoom conference Tuesday.
Beckham sang that refrain all last season, and it never changed. Most of Beckham’s least productive games in the NFL have come since he’s been paired up with Mayfield.
* His 22 yards marked the fourth time in 17 Browns games that Beckham has produced yardage in the 20s — 23.5% of his time here. To put that in perspective, in 59 games with the Giants, he had only two games in the 20s — 3.3% of the time.
* Six times in his 17 games here he’s had three catches or fewer — 35% of his games. In New York, he had three catches or fewer only three times in 59 games — 5% of his games.
His lack of production in the AFC North has been particularly concerning, with 21 receptions for 296 yards and two touchdowns in seven games, three of which were victories. That’s an average of three catches for 42 yards, which is far less than the Browns anticipated when they traded first- and third-round picks and Jabrill Peppers for him.
In Baltimore, Beckham, a three-time Pro Bowler, didn’t get the ball until about four minutes into the second quarter, and by then he was already frustrated. He was flagged for a facemask penalty on his first target, and then dropped a crucial third-and-2 pass in the red zone that could’ve helped close the gap to 17-13 late in the first half.
He admitted that he likes to get involved early.
“It’s like a shooter putting up a couple 3s early and you hit one, two of them, like, God knows you might drop 60, you know what I mean?” Beckham said of early receptions. “I would love to get involved early, but it just didn’t go that way Sunday. And like I said, you’ve got to give your hats off to the other team sometimes. They just came out and they just played better than us.”
Beckham was at a loss to explain why he and Mayfield lack chemistry, but Mayfield didn’t exactly light it up with anyone else either. He completed only 53.8% of his passes and earned a 65.0 rating after throwing one touchdown pass and one interception.
“I’ve never played quarterback, so it’s very hard to put yourself in someone else’s shoes,” Beckham said. “As a receiver, you’re like ‘man, I’m open!’ or this or that, and that’s just not feasible for me to think about what he may be going through back there or if there’s pressure or if there’s things going on.
“I know there’s a lot on his plate. I know that none of us played the way that we would have wanted to play on Sunday. You kind of just have to give your hats off to the Ravens. They came out there, they were the better team, they beat the [expletive] out of us and we keep it pushing.”
While Beckham was talking, Mike Francesa of WFAN radio in New York was tweeting that he hears the Browns are shopping the receiver and that he won’t come cheap. He also stated Beckham isn’t the problem, implying that Mayfield is.
A major problem is Beckham’s cap hit this year of $14.25 million. Most teams are cap-strapped at this point, so a trade isn’t easy.
But Beckham has professed his admiration many times for Bill Belichick, and he’s very close to Patriots quarterback Cam Newton, with whom he worked out in the offseason. The Patriots have the…
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