Odell Beckham Jr. made note of the date and predicted the significance of his introduction to Cleveland and the Browns as something that will stand the test of time and be worth remembering.
“I think this moment is going to be more iconic than we all realize right now,” Beckham said Monday. “That’s what we want the goal to be, to look back in 10 years and be like, ‘Man, I remember.’ The start of something great.”
There is no doubt the day the Giants traded Beckham away will never be forgotten, not by the Giants and not by the Browns. It happened nearly three weeks ago, and the reverberations continue to register around the NFL and within the teams involved in such a mega-deal.
The Giants sent Beckham, 26, away in his athletic prime, only seven months after signing him to a five-year, $90 million contract, in exchange for a first-round (No. 17 overall) and third-round (95th overall) pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, plus 23-year-old safety Jabrill Peppers. There were rumblings the Giants were listening to offers for their superstar receiver, but Beckham clearly did not believe he would be dealt.
It shocked him.
“I definitely would say that,” Beckham said, seated at a dais with new teammates Myles Garrett, Jarvis Landry and Baker Mayfield at the Browns’ facility in Berea, Ohio. “It’s just a lot to process. You start off in New York in your career and next thing you know I’m here today. I’m very thankful for the opportunity to be here. Kinda the past is in the past. It was definitely a shock. I think I’ve come to grips with everything.”
Beckham said he was heading to dinner when he noticed he was receiving a call from Giants general manager Dave Gettleman. He heard the news and went quiet at dinner.
“It just was a lot,” he said. “I don’t know how else to describe it. It just was a lot of emotions and a lot of thoughts that run through your mind. They’re all life-changing. They’re all the same, in theory, but it’s changing.”
It hit Beckham in waves, and another came crashing in on him during a recent get-together with Saquon Barkley and Sterling Shepard, now former Giants teammates.
“It’s such a sudden change,” Beckham said. “You build relationships with your teammates and those other guys on that team and that’s really the hardest thing. Like seeing Saquon and Shep the other night and like we were all like, ‘Damn, it’s just different.’ It’s really the guys in the locker room, the people you go to war with and you wake up in training camp and go through all those things with. But now I get an opportunity meet new guys, new friends. It’s very exciting.”
The Browns are allowed to open their offseason program early because they have a new head coach, with Freddie Kitchens taking over after serving as the offensive coordinator in 2018. Kitchens spoke with Beckham after the trade was made official, but this was the first time they met, face-to-face, coach-to-player. Kitchens said he told Beckham he loved him.
“I did,” Kitchens said. “Gave him a hug, too. He said he loved me. It’s like a love story.”
That broke up the room with laughter as the relationship begins to grow — a player-franchise relationship that ran its course with the Giants.