Odell Beckham Jr. has supposedly played through a sports hernia all year with the Cleveland Browns. Will this impact his fantasy football value in 2020?
After reaching the Pro Bowl in his first three years in the league, the last three have been injury-riddle and therefore very underwhelming for Odell Beckham Jr. His Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield revealed that Beckham has been dealing with a sports hernia throughout the season.
While the Browns medical staff may have mismanaged it, how does the news of this injury impact Beckham’s fantasy football viable for the rest of the 2019 NFL season? Is there any chance this negatively impacts his fantasy football stock heading into 2020? The Fantasy Footballers think this injury might knock him out of the first round but is still an alluring WR1 for most teams.
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When he’s healthy, Beckham plays like a top-three wide receiver in football. During his first three years in the league with the New York Giants, Beckham could consistently get you 90 catches for 1,300 yards and 10 touchdown grabs. That is the type of production you can only hope your WR1 can garner for you throughout an entire campaign.
However, since the infamous boat photo down in Miami, Beckham has seen his production drop to around 75 catches for nearly 1,000 yards and roughly four touchdowns. He still has three more games left this season for the Browns, but there are no guarantees he’ll get over the 1,000-receiving yard threshold this season. He needs 156 more receiving yards to get there.
So there is a very real possibility that Beckham may no longer be a first-round pick in even the deepest of fantasy football leagues. However, if he does drop down to the 20s in fantasy football rankings among all players, he could be a huge value for you as a second or even a third-round pick. In short, Beckham can do things top picks can do and second-tier players simply cannot.
2020 will be a very telling year for how Beckham’s NFL career goes. It’ll be year seven for him out of LSU. He’ll be 28 years old and there will be a ton of great young receivers entering the league. Beckham must find a way to adapt in the early part of next decade, or he’ll just be looked at as a guy who balled out during the first few years of his rookie contract and not much else.