A lot of this offseason for the New York Jets was focused on acquiring quarterback Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers. They brought players that Rodgers reportedly wanted to play alongside as well.
Former teammates Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb and Billy Turner were all signed in free agency. One player that Rodgers reportedly wanted to have join him in New York was wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.
The Jets were connected to Beckham for a while as they attempted to navigate some salary cap difficulties. The two sides had planned to meet the day after Easter, but that meeting never happened. That is because the Baltimore Ravens swooped in with a one-year, $15 million offer with $3 million in attainable bonuses.
The Jets reportedly were only offering a contract in the range of $5 million for guaranteed money with incentives to earn more. That wide of a gap seemingly made the decision easy for Beckham, who will now be catching passes from Lamar Jackson.
However, a deal with the Jets seems to have been closer to being done than thought. According to reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year cornerback Sauce Gardner, Beckham wanted to join Gang Green. He went into detail about it recently, revealing just how close the two were to becoming teammates.
“Odell, he wanted to play here,” cornerback Sauce Gardner recently told Conor Orr of SI.com. “It was to the point where he was picking his jersey. He was telling me, like, ‘Hey, ask so-and-so if I can get the jersey [number I want].’ He was going to wear number 7.”
The offer from Baltimore must have truly come out of nowhere if Beckham was already discussing jersey numbers with Gardner. It shows that he was serious about joining the Jets and thought that was where he would end up before the Ravens came with a strong offer to appease their quarterback.
At the end of the day the NFL is a business. While Beckham may have expected to sign with the Jets, it would have been tough to turn down a contract that potentially paid him $10+ million more from the Ravens.
