Getty Free agent wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. would put the Chiefs over the top in the AFC, according to former NFL executive Joe Banner.
The Kansas City Chiefs can flip the odds in the conference by signing free agent wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., according to a former NFL executive who worked in the front office with Andy Reid in Philadelphia.
Currently the Buffalo Bills are almost even money to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, while the Chiefs are slightly worse than 3-to-1 underdogs, according to FanDuel. But former Eagles and Browns executive Joe Banner told Heavy’s The Matt Lombardo Show that could easily change.
“The only thing I’m wondering is if either of those teams [Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills] gets OBJ, and they both could use a third receiver, to me, they then become the favorite versus the other [in the AFC],” Banner said during the appearance.
The Chiefs already boast the league’s second best passing offense at 296 yards per game, according to the NFL’s Game Statistics and Information System, but Banner disagrees with those who think there isn’t much room to improve.
“And I usually don’t, once you’ve got a good wide receiving corps, I usually don’t think of an addition like that making such a huge difference,” Banner said of OBJ. “But he, if healthy, and if he can play like he did at the end of last year, and you add him to the existing weapons on either of those teams, I just can’t even imagine what a defensive coordinator is thinking as he looks at the tape, and how he even comes up with a game plan that he even thinks has a chance to slow them down. Forget stopping them, that’s off the table, but even slowing them down, I just I just don’t even know how you’d start to go about doing that.”
Usually keeping a key player away from a rival is not a great reason to make a move, but given that there’s a significant chance Beckham ends up in Buffalo if the Chiefs don’t reel him in, it’s hard to ignore that factor.
Kadarius Toney and Odell Beckham Jr. ‘Apples and Oranges’
It’s easy to understand why a lot of people thought the trade with the Giants for Kadarius Toney took the Chiefs out of the mix for Beckham, but that wasn’t the case.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio said the comparison believes the two receivers would fill different needs for the Chiefs. “It’s an apples and oranges move, frankly,” Florio wrote. “Toney is a longer-term play for the Chiefs. OBJ would be more of a short-term move. Once doesn’t exclude the other.”
There’s no reason the Chiefs can’t add Beckham for this year’s run, while building towards the future with Toney.
Banner Says Chiefs Will Win ‘Two or Three Super Bowls’ This Decade
Banner’s interesting comments on the Chiefs went beyond the Odell Beckham Jr. discussion, though. The former coworker of Andy Reid’s predicted that the 2019 Lombardi Trophy is not going to be the only one the Chiefs bring home. Banner compared these Chiefs to the New England Patriots of the last decade, the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990’s, and the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980’s.
“I think the 2020’s is going to end up being the Kansas City Chiefs with Andy Reid and Mahomes as a team that will win two or three Super Bowls in this decade,” Banner told Lombardo. “But the Bills are going to give them a run for their money, I mean they’re very very smart, both have dominant generational type quarterbacks, and they’re really smart about not just evaluating players but team building philosophies.”