Odell Beckham to the Seahawks is a pipe dream. A really bad pipe dream.

There are 20 million reasons this deal is never going down

You may have heard that Odell Beckham Jr. is asking for $20 million in his new deal. No, this isn’t an April Fools’ joke either. He’s essentially asking for quarterback money.  Antonio Brown is currently the highest paid wide receiver, and he’s making $17 million. So Beckham is asking not just to be the highest paid player at his position. He’s asking to be paid almost 18 percent more than Brown. Let’s hope Russell Wilson doesn’t ask to be paid that much more than any other quarterback when he’s at the negotiating table.

Speaking of Wilson, his impending contract negotiations are a big reason the Seahawks haven’t made a big splash in free agency so far this year. Jimmy Garoppolo is making $27.5 million a year, and Kirk Cousins is getting $28 million. Russell Wilson is tenth on the quarterback salary scale right now. The Seahawks cannot afford to pay $20 million to a wide receiver when they’ll be shelling out well over $30 million to their quarterback on his next contract.

Depending on your source, overthecap.com or spotrac.com, right now Seattle has around $9 million in cap space right now. About $6 million need to be allocated to signing their 2018 draft picks. That doesn’t exactly leave $20 million for OBJ. Even if the Seahawks free up another $7 million by releasing Cliff Avril as expected, there isn’t enough money.

Other teams could make this happen much more easily than Seattle

You know who does have the cap space to make the deal? Cleveland and San Francisco. Jarvis Landry is apparently recruiting his former LSU teammate hard to help him resurrect the Browns. The 49ers would be more than happy to give their shiny new quarterback a decent target. They’re hardly the only players in the market, as the Rams are making some noise about Beckham too. Like Seattle, they’d have to make some cap moves to make it happen.

Set aside Beckham’s salary demands for now. Let’s look a the Giants demands. Rumor has it they want two first round picks for Beckham, but most sensible (read that as not insane) reports say the Giants want a first round pick plus more. As the Seahawks have a first round pick and nothing else until the 87th round – at least it seems that way – they’re a bit hamstrung here as well. Seattle could offer the 18th and 120th pick. That’s not bad, but also not likely Pete Carroll and John Schneider wold give up what little value they hold in the draft.

The Browns hold the first and fourth picks overall, plus three second round picks. They have a lot of maneuvering room. The 49ers have the ninth overall pick, a second rounder and two picks in the third round. Not as good as Cleveland’s stash, but much better than what the Seahawks can offer. I’ll add that Peter Panacy of FanSided’s Niner Noise is not a fan of a Beckham trade.

But moving Earl Thomas could make it happen. That’s bad.

I’ve purposely left out one potential deal maker until now. Those Earl Thomas trade rumors haven’t gone away. They’ve just died down a bit. If the Seahawks trade Thomas to another team for their much desired first round pick plus more, it wouldn’t make sense to clear those millions in cap space just to hand it all over to one player. Especially when that one player is no more valuable than Thomas.

In the Seahawks scheme, Thomas is clearly more valuable than Beckham would be. Thomas is four years older, true, but he’d also be about $7 million cheaper than Beckham, judging by their respective salary demands. That’s about what it cost to sign Bradley McDougald and Justin Coleman combined.

You’d have to pass on the chance to sign similar talent to sign Beckham. I don’t know about you, but I like the Seahawks playoff chances with players like Thomas, McDougald and Coleman better than trading them all for Odell Beckham Jr. The Seahawks have made these big splashy deals before. If they didn’t figure out that it wasn’t a good idea with Percy Harvin, surely they realized it after the Graham deal. You make deals that fit your team identity.

Related Story: What have the Seahawks done for their offense so far in 2018?

I like Beckham a lot, but he doesn’t fit with anything the Seahawks have done to retool the team this off-season. Did I say signing Beckham is a pipe dream? Make that a crack pipe dream. It would be a brief high before a descent into hell.