Patriots Needed Odell Beckham ... But Price Too Steep?

The New England Patriots certainly could've benefitted from having a living, breathing highlight reel on their roster. Also wouldn't hurt to add, a Super Bowl champion who has shine in the game's brightest spotlights and who would've been a productive weapon for a franchise quarterback apparently on thin ice.

Alas, it's best he went to Baltimore.

The Easter Bunny had a late delivery for Baltimore Ravens fans as Odell Beckham Jr. announced he'd make his way to Charm City in an attempt to resume his NFL career last weekend. Beckham has not played since headlining the aerial antics of the Los Angeles Rams' Super Bowl trek last calendar year. That championship panache likely helped Beckham secure a guaranteed $15 million purse for his services and the final checks could total as high as $18 million.

Call it a desperate ploy by a team trying to, for lack of a better term, salvage its Lamar Jackson era. But the Ravens go into the season with championship aspirations that will no doubt attract the NFL's national TV partners. What's bound to ensue is an all-or-nothing campaign that's equal parts awe-inspiring and anxiety-inducing depending on whether the viewer supports (or, in this day and age, bet on) Baltimore's purple-and-black, a constant battle between checking the SportsCenter Top 10 and the Ravens' injury report.

New England didn't need that.

A mostly uninterrupted run of unprecedented success has perhaps spoiled Patriots fans and eternally turned them off to any idea of struggling toward a greater good. The team seemed to get back on track with a playoff cameo at the end of the 2021-22 season but resuming the postseason drought sent the team on an apparent spiral of second-guessing, one where formerly indispensable names like Mac Jones and even seemingly perpetual supervisor Bill Belichick are up for removal from their respective posts.

If the Patriots are indeed opting to go the rebuild route, one that has nonetheless afforded them a chance to compete (those celebrating New England's demise forget they lingered on the outskirts of the AFC playoff picture until the very end), they need to do so in the most muted way they can. That luxury won't be afforded to them for at least as long as the walking headline that is Belichick sticks around and their previously unstoppable dynasty previously changed the perception of Patriots football forever.

But bestowing $18 million for a one-year receiver whose one activity on an NFL field from last season was partaking in the Rams' championship banner-raising is an idea rife with pratfalls and controversy. It's better for the Ravens, a team dealing with football's version of a first-world problem, to make that potential mistake than the Patriots.

New England's quartet appears to be controlled by Western New York and South Beach until further notice ... and the Garden State could overtake them next if and when the Aaron Rodgers deal is finally enacted. But just because the Patriots have lost the division, that doesn't mean they should lose their sense of restraint and sanity ... something the Beckham deal undoubtedly would've surrendered.

Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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