National Football League

Big Dawg

Updated Jul. 17, 2020 9:01 p.m. ET

There are a few certainties in the National Football League that are unaffected and untouchable, immune to whatever else is going on around them. This week, we have seen irrefutable evidence of one of them.

Mention Odell Beckham Jr.’s name, and it is going to get people talking.

Beckham is six years into his NFL career now, and for those of us who like to debate everything from the big picture to the tiniest minutiae of sports, he is a gift that keeps on giving.

He is polarizing enough that you could argue he is both overrated and underrated at the same time. He has enough brilliance to be seen as a potential final piece for a team dreaming of immortal greatness, and enough unpredictability that he does, rightly or wrongly, come accompanied with numerous red flags.

He’s quirky enough to wear a watch worth more than an average home during the rigors of an NFL game, impetuous enough to attempt something as spectacular as The Catch (never mind actually pull it off), and just plain good enough to have set multiple receiving milestones as the fastest man to 3,000, 4,000 and 5,000 yards. And yet, his teams have lost more than they have won, and he has appeared in a grand total of one career playoff game.

Coming at a time when there are no games of any description, in any sport, rumors that the Cleveland Browns were considering shipping Beckham on Wednesday were enough to spark a genuine NFL chatter frenzy.

It started when WFAN radio host Marc “Moose” Malusis reported that the Cleveland Browns were in discussions with the Minnesota Vikings over a deal that would send Beckham to the Twin Cities, in exchange for a second and fifth round pick next year, ostensibly plugging the receiving hole left by Stefon Diggs’ recent departure to Buffalo.

FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd then weighed in on The Herd to give the theory some extra credence, by which time the rumor mill was in full flow, and Vikings and Browns fans were going into social media overdrive.

Cowherd is not an NFL beat reporter, but his time in the business has given him some serious contacts. Just a couple of weeks ago, he correctly predicted that Tom Brady was going to end up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That same source, he said, was talking up the prospect of a Beckham switch.

“Remember in New York, ‘Oh, he is not going to get traded,’” Cowherd said. “They squashed all the rumors — (then) he got traded. I never thought he fit in Cleveland. He partied in Paris, he has a house in Bel Air, and he lived in New York. Cleveland’s not his vibe.

“The same source (as Brady) just texted me. OBJ wants out. He has been a good soldier. He’s not going to make a big deal. He will deny it. He wants to get along with everybody. Let’s just say this. OBJ will not go public, (but) he knows Minnesota is a good fit.”

While the status of those rumors continued to shift over the following 24 hours, with Cowherd sharing an update Thursday and other reporters citing sources that called the initial reports “false,” it remains true that Beckham has at times seemed like an uneasy fit in Cleveland.

And it's possible to see how a team like the Vikings, rather than the Browns, might be able to bring out the best in him. Kirk Cousins is a veteran quarterback with an accurate arm, head coach Mike Zimmer has built a stable framework, and there is Pro Bowler Adam Thielen to help shoulder much of the receiving burden.

But whatever talks may or may not be ongoing, would Cleveland really pull the trigger a year after landing Beckham from the New York Giants?

The Browns’ rework has not gone as planned. Sure, they’re not in danger of going 0-16 anymore, but 6-10 wasn’t anyone’s idea of a productive campaign, especially after having been a popular preseason sleeper pick.

By the time the season ended, it wasn’t a happy camp. It is hard to think that the offseason and the lockdown can possibly have improved anything. But even so, Beckham is their most explosive player, and sending him packing would be some kind of an admission of defeat.

“You don’t get any better by moving on from your best players,” Nick Wright said on First Things First. “It wasn’t OBJ’s fault that the Giants were mediocre. He was one of the reasons they weren’t awful.”

Wright also pointed out that Beckham only had 102 fewer yards these past two seasons than Amari Cooper, who just commanded a $100 million contract from the Dallas Cowboys: “It’s not OBJ’s fault that the Browns underachieved. He’s one of the reasons they’re not drafting in the top five.”

In the right situation, in the right mood, with the right support, Beckham can be one of the biggest game-changers in the league. No one does what he does more electrifyingly, more dramatically, more effectively.

He’s not that guy yet for Cleveland, where he’s essentially been the most famous player on an underproducing team. Right now, he’s a talking point, perhaps the biggest one in the game. And however this turns out, we’ll be talking about him still.