Owner John Mara said recently that the Giants “certainly don’t want to see” Odell Beckham playing for anyone but them and it appears Beckham wants the team to pay handsomely for the right to keep him in Jersey.
Beckham spoke to Uninterrupted this week about a variety of topics, including his contractual future in the NFL. Beckham said that a forthcoming second NFL deal wasn’t on his mind when he reported to minicamp after skipping the voluntary portion of the team’s offseason program, but now admits that he’s set a lofty goal on that front.
“It’s like the elephant in the room, and you don’t want to talk about it but I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I’m like, ‘No, I’m going to ... there’s no need to not talk about it,’” Beckham said. “I believe that I will be hopefully not just the highest-paid receiver in the league, but the highest paid, period.”
Unless Mara has a strong desire to make good on Beckham’s dream, it seems unlikely that Beckham will realize that goal. Quarterbacks dominate the list of top-paid players in the league and the exceptions are usually tasked with sacking those well-paid signal callers. The top-paid wideouts in the league right now -- Julio Jones, Antonio Brown, Dez Bryant, A.J. Green and Demaryius Thomas -- have deals averaging between $14-17 million per season. That pales in comparison to the best-paid players overall and there’s not much cause for Beckham to leave them well behind even if he does go to the top of the receiver list.
The Giants exercised their option on Beckham’s contract for 2018 and they will then have the franchise tag at their disposal, so there’s not much immediate fear that they’ll lose him if he pushes to make his hope become reality. That said, it should be interesting to see how things play out from here given the parameters Beckham would like to set for his future compensation.