Odell Beckham Jr. trade has Giants fans questioning their very existence

The New York Giants are trading Odell Beckham Jr., and keeping Eli Manning, so what exactly is the plan?

After passing on a quarterback with the second overall pick last year, the New York Giants signed wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. to a five-year, $90 million contract extension last summer. Now, before that deal even starts, Beckham is on his way to the Cleveland Browns for safety Jabrill Peppers along with first and third-round picks in next month’s draft.

Beckham has missed 16 games over the last two seasons, but he was still very productive in 12 games last season (77 catches for 1,052 yards, six touchdowns). General manager David Gettleman said he didn’t extend Beckham just to trade him, but there were indications head coach Pat Shurmur did not appreciate some of Beckham’s antics.

The Giants will get a second chance to draft a quarterback this year, with the No. 6 overall pick. But they’re committed to Eli Manning, with Gettleman most recently saying “the Chiefs model worked really well” in regard to drafting Patrick Mahomes and having him sit as a rookie behind Alex Smith.

The only problem with that plan is there is no Mahomes in this year’s draft class, and Manning has not even been as good as Smith was in quite a while.

Manning set a career-high for completion percentage (66 percent) last year, but the eye test has shown a cooked quarterback for about three seasons. If nothing else, trading Beckham hurts the plan to get one more marginally effective season out if Manning.

Much as the Steelers did in sending Antonio Brown to the Raiders, the Giants are absorbing significant dead money by trading Beckham.

The Giants and Browns have already done business this offseason, with a trade to send defensive end Olivier Vernon and a draft pick to Cleveland for guard Kevin Zeitler and a draft pick. Landon Collins has also headed to the division rival Washington Redskins in free agency, with Peppers now as the obvious replacement (and downgrade) at free safety.

The Giants now own two of the first 17 picks in next month’s draft, which positions them to move up if they want to. So that’s something to latch onto as a Giants fan.

But not even The Killers could put on a Mr. Brightside face after this trade. This is a tough time to be a Giants fan as the organization continues to look inept building around Manning and trading away a future Hall of Famer.

At least, they have Saquon Barkley, their face of the franchise, but needless to say, Giants fans are distraught over this move.

https://twitter.com/JordanIce17/status/1105623418563629056

By unloading Beckham, the Giants have committed to Saquon Barkley as the face of the franchise. Unfortunately, Barkley is about all Giants’ fans have to hang their hat on right now.