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Comparing OBJ’s Contract to Packers’ Receivers

Odell Beckham Jr. will be making more than the entire Green Bay Packers’ receiver corps. A lot more.
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – It was a happy Easter for Odell Beckham Jr., who signed a one-year contract with the Baltimore Ravens worth at least $15 million. With “reachable incentives,” he could pocket $18 million, according to NFL.com.

That’s a lot of money – especially compared to what the Green Bay Packers are paying their receivers.

According to OverTheCap.com, the Packers have dedicated about $5.53 million of cap space to their enter receiver corps. That makes it the least-expensive group in the NFL, though that number is sure to grow with only five receivers under contract: 2022 draft picks Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, Samori Toure and Bo Melton and first-year player Jeff Cotton.

Let’s say Beckham hits some of the incentives and collects $17 million. That would be $1 million per game. For Green Bay’s five receivers, it’s $65,064 per game. Put another way, Beckham in six weeks will cost more than the Packers’ entire receiver corps for the full season.

Because of the youth on the depth chart, Green Bay’s receiver corps costs just a fraction of what most teams are paying.

According to OTC, the Titans’ receivers have a combined cap charge of $7.97 million. Every other team is at least double – the Falcons have the third-least-expensive receiver corps at $11.80 million – and the league median is the Jets’ cap charge of $25.31 million.

With Davante Adams on the roster, the Packers’ combined cap charge for their receivers in 2021 was about $25.5 million, the sixth-highest in the league.

In the NFL, sometimes, you get what you pay for. Other times, you’re paying for past accomplishments. For the 31-year-old Beckham, who missed all of last season after suffering a torn ACL in the Rams’ Super Bowl victory, it will be interesting to see what he’s got left in the tank.

After catching 74 passes for 1,035 yards for the Browns in 2019, Beckham has 67 receptions for 856 yards and eight touchdowns in 21 games the past three seasons. As Green Bay’s second-round pick in 2022, Watson caught seven touchdown passes as a rookie.

Once he got rolling during the second half of the season, Watson in his final eight games produced 31 catches, 522 yards and all seven scores. Project that over a 17-game season, Watson would register 66 receptions for 1,109 yards and 15 touchdowns.

From 2018 through 2022, Beckham scored 18 touchdowns.

Green Bay will add another four or five receivers by the time organized team activities begin next month. Most of them will be rookies, whether draft picks or undrafted free agents, though general manager Brian Gutekunst has said he’d like to add a veteran to the mix. That group has been picked over but Randall Cobb remains available.

Whoever is added, there are sky-high expectations for Watson.

“His first-year journey was an interesting one because, obviously, started off in the offseason with the knee surgery and some of the things that he really struggled through,” Gutekunst said at the Scouting Combine.

“Really proud of Christian because a lot of times with all the things that he went through that rookie season would’ve really just kind of gone away. For him to stay in the fight and then be able to produce like he did down the stretch, really a credit to the kid.”

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