In case you have been living under a rock and have not heard, Odell Beckham Jr. is not with the New York Giants anymore. He was traded earlier this month to the Cleveland Browns, who were willing to give up the No. 17 overall pick in the upcoming draft, a third-round pick, and a couple of players in exchange for the talented receiver.
Fans may be disappointed that Beckham didn't land in Santa Clara, but the 49ers were in conversations with the Giants for him. New York just wanted too much in exchange for the receiver.
"We were definitely in it," 49ers CEO Jed York recently told NBC Sports Bay Area. "We were aggressive. But I think [the Giants] wanted different things than we had to offer. I think it would have been very hard for us to just give up a first-round pick and not get a ton in return, other than just the player, knowing that the second pick in the draft is a very, very valuable pick."
Not only did the Giants want the 49ers No. 2 overall pick, but they wanted two first rounders, according to general manager John Lynch.
"I think, ironically, the fact that we had the No. 2 pick made it more difficult because they wanted that badly," Lynch said Friday morning on KNBR via Matt Barrows of The Athletic. "They wanted two No. 1s. And we weren't willing to part with that. It was too valuable of a pick, even for a player of his magnitude. So we tried to come up with creative, different ways to get it done, and it didn't work out. So you move on."
Of course, giving up the No. 2 overall pick doesn't make much sense without getting the Giants' No. 6 in exchange, which New York was reportedly unwilling to do. They didn't have to with the Browns' offer.
The #49ers offer was very strong. Sounds like it was pretty close https://t.co/w5l67p4iRv
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 29, 2019
To add to this, word was the Niners would've been amenable to moving from 2 to 6 as part of a deal for Beckham. The problem was what would the rest of the compensation have been? That's where it broke down.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) March 29, 2019
Then there is former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown. Despite the veteran receiver's strong desire to play for the 49ers, the feeling was not mutual, and he ended up with the Oakland Raiders.
"We took a quick look, and then we just said, 'Hey, we're not interested in that for our team,'" Lynch said about Brown. "That's where we are. I think we feel pretty good about our receiving corps. I know a lot of people don't share our sentiments. That's not to say we're done there. We still have a lot of this offseason left. We have the draft left.
"But we feel good about that, and we want to continue to improve it. So that's where we're at on the receiving corps, and we're going to continue to use this draft to improve ourselves."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Lynch below.
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