OWINGS MILLS, Md. — With so much focus on how the Odell Beckham Jr. signing will impact the status of Lamar Jackson for 2023, the Ravens still had to answer a very important $15 million question.
Just how healthy is the three-time Pro Bowl wide receiver who’s appeared in just 25 games since the start of the 2020 season?
One recalls the highlight-reel catches or even the career-high 222 receiving yards the former New York Giant had against Baltimore back in 2016, but that was an eternity ago in football years. Even Beckham’s strong 2021 postseason has been more the exception than the norm since he appeared to be on the fast track to Canton with three straight seasons of at least 1,300 receiving yards and 10 or more touchdown catches to begin his NFL career as a 2014 first-round pick out of LSU.
In 2017, Beckham played in only four games before fracturing his ankle and undergoing season-ending surgery. He missed the final four games of the 2018 season with a quad injury, his swan song with the Giants. After playing all 16 games and registering his fifth career 1,000-yard season with Cleveland in 2019, he then tore the ACL in his left knee in 2020 and underwent a second ACL reconstruction on that same knee after Super Bowl LVI, prompting him to sit out the entire 2022 campaign despite talking to the Ravens and other teams about potentially playing down the stretch. For clarification, Beckham says that second reconstruction was the result of an unsuccessful first surgery — discovered by Los Angeles Rams team physician Neal ElAttrache — and him playing without a functional ACL in 2021 rather than re-tearing the ligament in the Super Bowl win over Cincinnati, a game in which he caught a touchdown and registered 52 receiving yards before going down late in the first half.
That’s quite the list of injuries for the investment the Ravens just made.
Last month, the 30-year-old Beckham invited teams to watch him work out in Arizona, and general manager Eric DeCosta sent assistant wide receivers coach Keith Williams to see what the 5-foot-11, 198-pound wideout looked like 13 months removed from his second ACL surgery. Various members of the organization then reviewed video of the workout multiple times to see how effectively Beckham moved in a controlled environment. After meeting with team officials at the owners meetings in Arizona and also having conversations with owner Steve Bisciotti, Beckham agreed to Baltimore’s one-year offer worth $15 million guaranteed and up to $18 million with incentives, which has been widely regarded as an overpay for someone with such question marks at this stage of his career.
But the Ravens believe they landed the veteran wide receiver they needed to get to the next level — assuming Jackson will still be at quarterback this fall.
“We saw everything we needed to see, knowing that it’s going to just improve,” said DeCosta about Beckham’s knee. “That’s the thing — when a guy has a serious injury in general, it only gets better. It may take time. Sometimes it takes longer, but it only gets better. What we saw was extremely encouraging, and I can’t wait to see the progression from March to April to May to September. That’s probably the thing that we’re most excited about. We’re getting somebody who’s ready to explode again, and he’s in the right environment with the right quarterback, with the right team in the right city.
“It’s the perfect player at the perfect time.”
Asked how close he is to pre-injury form, Beckham admits he doesn’t “know how to exactly answer that, but I guess we’ll see in September.” It also remains to be seen how present and involved the veteran will be for voluntary workouts this spring — with or without Jackson — but he says he feels “great now” after the long road to recovery.
He admittedly had some doubts about getting back to this point.
“There was definitely a time period where it was a lot harder for me,” Beckham said. “Now, after being a year removed, I think going into that 13 months, 14 months out of your surgery, you start to really turn the corner. I look at it — we’re in early-mid April — you have May, June, July, August. That’s five months until we’re on the field and rolling. For me, that’s plenty of time.
“I have plenty of confidence. It’s just time to get to work, and I’m excited about that.”
Even with the risk of such a hefty cost, the Ravens are excited too.
