49ers should trade for Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

The San Francisco 49ers are in need of help at the wide receiver position.  Nobody would be better a better remedy than the New York Giants Odell Beckham Jr.

The 2018 NFL season has come to an end. Not a moment too soon for San Francisco 49ers fans.

With the end of the season comes speculation. What areas of the team need the most improvement? Who will the 49ers draft? What free agents will they sign?

As the calendar clicks the days away and the NFL moves towards the beginning of it’s new league year, beginning March 13, the rumor mill begins to really heat up. Who will be released, who is available for trade, who is getting fired and who is getting hired is fodder for football prognosticators. This time of year everyone seems to have a hot take. As a general rule, counter-intuitive hot takes should be ignored. I will make an exception here.

The Athletic’s Jay Glazer is not a hot-take artist. He is a league insider who regularly breaks actual NFL news. It is safe to say that he has inside connections with the league office and all 32 NFL teams. So when Jay makes a prediction, it is reasonable to assume that there are some real-life indicators that inform such a prophecy.

His most recent bold prediction: the New York Giants will trade wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. this offseason. Naturally, this piqued the interest of Niners fans everywhere. If it is true that Beckham is indeed available, forget Pittsburgh Steelers wideout Antonio Brown, this is the deal the 49ers should make.

Beckham, at 26 years old, is on the cusp of his prime and any team acquiring him would owe $74 million over the next five years — a bargain at the wide receiver position for a player of Beckham’s talents.

The 49ers absolutely have a need at receiver, have salary cap space and have a general manager in John Lynch who has said he will do his due diligence on any transaction that could improve the team. All the components to facilitate a deal between the two teams seems to be there.

Beckham, a three-time Pro-Bowler, has seen a statistical downturn in recent years. Injuries and the declining play of quarterback Eli Manning can account for a large portion of this. Beckham has a lot of great football left in him.

The idea of quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo throwing passes to tight end George Kittle and Beckham should make every 49ers fan giddy. It should make head coach Kyle Shanahan go absolutely bonkers. Fans are desperate for the Niners to do something that takes their offense to the next level. Trading for Beckham would put Garoppolo and company in the penthouse.

Giants general manager David Gettleman has stated he has no interest in trading his star receiver. This should be taken with a grain of salt. Things change fast in the fluid NFL. With the Giants in the position of looking for a new franchise quarterback, it would be negligent of them not to investigate any opportunity to find Manning’s replacement.

The potential anatomy of any 49ers-Giants deal only lends credence to the possibility. The Niners own the second overall selection in the 2019 NFL Draft. The Giants hold selection No. 6. A swap of picks could be simply facilitated with the Giants’ inclusion of Beckham in the deal. New York would be put in a position to draft its quarterback of the future. The 49ers could move back in the draft, remaining in the top 10 and still select an elite prospect.

It’s crunch time in the 49ers current rebuild. All options are on the table. If the Giants are as willing a trade partner as Glazer seems to think, San Francisco would seemingly be in play for Beckham’s services.

There is no magic bullet when completely overhauling a team’s roster. Adding Beckham to Shanahan’s arsenal would certainly help load the gun, though.