Cowboys, Bills lead Odell Beckham Jr. sweepstakes

Odell Beckham Jr. remains a free agent after tearing his ACL in the Super Bowl and NFL contenders are lining up to add the star wide receiver to their roster.

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VOCH LOMBARDI: What's up, y'all? It's Voch Lombardi. Watch every second of this NFL season when and where you want it. Only on The Zone.

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Let's talk about this Odell Beckham sweepstakes, and also why it's important. And this isn't like a trade deadline thing where Calvin Ridley gets moved for next year. Or you send a second round pick, and Chase Claypool gets moved. This is more of a big deal type of bet because one, it's Odell Beckham, and Odell Beckham is likely going to play for a contender.

So it's going to be make a contender better type move. And it's the idea that you don't have to give up draft picks. You just simply pay for Odell Beckham services, and he kind of plays for your team and elevates whatever wide receiver room he ends up going to.

Now, this is what makes this important. Odell Beckham appeared on this podcast on complex sports, and he was kind of speaking on what he's anticipating, in terms of teams courting him, or him in the free agent market. And the things that he's valuing or looking forward to when he signs for a team. He even mentioned four teams.

And I imagine that Odell Beckham's agent has been getting a lot of phone calls about his services. Odell Beckham only named four people. And some of the things that matter to Odell Beckham are one of two things. I would say one is playing for a contender and, then there's the idea that Odell Beckham is tired of being this mercenary guy. He's sick of living out of a suitcase. He wants to buy a house in whatever city that he ends up playing for, and he wants to live there for a little bit.

And I think this is interesting because that goes against the idea that Odell Beckham is some kind of diva guy, which is still a narrative that lives in the National Football League. And it's interesting because I feel like if there was any narrative about Odell Beckham, it would have gone away last year.

We didn't hear about any nonsense coming from Odell Beckham. He wasn't flipping over kicking nets. He wasn't getting any attitudes with anybody. And there's this conversation going around, well, if Odell Beckham signs for a team and he's not the number one receiver, will it cause problems in that locker room?

Well, I think if we learn anything from his run with the Rams is that he wasn't the number one receiver with the Rams. Cooper Kupp was the number one receiver with the Rams. And Odell Beckham was just-- you can call him a 1B, but I think he was just much more a complimentary guy when Cooper Kupp got all of the attention.

What does this mean for Odell Beckham? You get a more mature Odell Beckham, a less emotional Odell Beckham. And you just get this guy that kind of wants to be a ranked team for a little while. So even if it is this concern about, oh, his ACL injury. Fine. If he signs for a long term deal, he'll be back there next year.

Now, let's talk about this, which is interesting. The four teams that he mentioned, that he said out of his mouth-- Giants, Bills, Packers, and Cowboys-- now, ladies and gentlemen, you know any time anybody says the DC word, it's going to get big movement, big traction.

And I think there's this thing that free agents say Dallas Cowboys sometimes just to kind of drive the price up a little bit for these other teams to throw big money at them. Go look at Von Miller and the contract that he got from the Bills. All he had to say, hey, Cowboys are interested. And teams tend to drive their number up a little bit. I'm not confirming that that's what's going on. It's just that has been the result.

So as we look at these four teams, I'm going to immediately take off Green Bay Packers because, yeah, it'll be cool to catch passes from Aaron Rodgers, but one, Green Bay Packers are not a winning team, and just by the way things look, I don't think Aaron Rodgers is going to be there next year.

This may be his final run. He may retire after this year. He looks like he just doesn't care about football too much. I don't think Odell Beckham is going to be invested in a situation like that. Oddly enough, Daniel Jones may be playing a little better than-- I ain't going to say it.

But the Giants are winning football games right now. Yeah, it'll be a cool little reunion for him to go back and go with the Giants. But do you want to catch passes from Daniel Jones? That's where I think the big conversation comes from there. And do we have evidence of one, the Giants having talent on the team and not using it? 100%. Do we have evidence of wide receivers that were good on one team-- Kenny Golladay with the Lions, and Matthew Stafford.

Yeah, Kenny Golladay was good over there, but he goes to the Giants, and he's not as good. Yes, we have evidence of talented receivers not being able to make it work in New York. So in my mind, that just leaves me with the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys.

Now, I don't think-- and that's the good part about the whole Odell Beckham sweepstakes. I think he's aware that he's not going to just be flat out bona fide number one wide receiver guy. But he's still Odell Beckham. So he may not be better than Stefon Diggs, but if he's better than Isaiah McKenzie, then let's roll. And I can say the same about the Cowboys.

He doesn't have to come in and be better than CeeDee Lamb. He just has to be better than Noah Brown and fit into that Lamb, Gallup, and possibly Beckham combo. I think what it comes down to is teams have to court Odell Beckham.

Teams have to make Odell Beckham feel special. Teams have to really make their pitch, and they need a really good salesman to come in and convince Odell Beckham that this landing spot is the landing spot that you want to be at. And who better to do that than our own beloved Jerry Wayne Jones.

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