Baltimore Ravens

He's back! Odell Beckham Jr. scores game-winning TD in brilliant 222-yard performance

Published Nov. 15, 2016 1:55 p.m. ET

Chris Chase

Odell Beckham Jr. is back. He was never really gone -- just a little lost and self-pitying -- but oh my is his slump over and with a vengeance that should have the entire NFL in a panic.

On a fourth-and-1 with the Giants trailing the Baltimore Ravens by three points with under two minutes left, Beckham caught a slant from Eli Manning, cut to the sideline and easily won the footrace to the end zone for a game-winning 66-yard touchdown. It was his eighth catch for 222 yards (a career high) and two TDs. Vintage Beckham, right down to the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that gave the Ravens a far better chance at a last-minute comeback than they should have had.

Earlier in the game, the embattled receiver showed what was perhaps the first glimpse we've had this season of his football superstardom -- the kind that turned him into an overnight NFL star as a rookie -- snaring a 25-yard pass from Eli Manning, then cutting upfield, stepping on the gas like he was driving a Tesla on a straight country road and getting to the end zone for a 75-yard go-ahead touchdown but not before he started taunting the Baltimore Ravens defender fruitlessly chasing him down. (He didn't get flagged because the taunt was under the guise of a preventive stiff arm, even though Eric Wedell was about five yards away and decelerating.)

Then Beckham did a triple-jump celebration in the end zone and continued his on-and-off love affair with the kicking net because, why not? (After the game-winner, he would get down on one knee and appeared to propose to the net.)

Beckham broke his career-long five-game touchdown-less streak last week. (He'd only had one such streak in his career and that was just a three-game one in his rookie year. Other than that, he hadn't gone two-straight weeks without scoring.) He had a 121-yard performance in a division game against the Redskins. So why exactly was Beckham's touchdown looked at as a slump-buster?

It wasn't the speed that that got Beckham wide open down the sideline. (No one, even his biggest detractors, ever worried about his quickness.) It wasn't the catch that was so big for Beckham. (Manning placed it perfectly.) It wasn't the field awareness. (The cut was fairly simple.) No, it was the swag, the attitude that's manifested itself in the negative ways since his infamous battle with Josh Norman last year and hasn't been the positive kind a mercurial receiver like Beckham needs in order to use his channel her inner-diva for good.

That little taunt, the one that makes the wide receiver a much-needed heel to NFL fans and comes from the place that can send the three-year veteran on downward spirals and get people questioning whether he's on a journey to become a lost NFL soul, was everything. The celebration was a triumphant one of a man who felt like he was back.

Oh, Beckham is still a tantrum-throwing whiner. He's still going to get personal fouls, beef with opponents and get into a sideline fracas or two. But that comes with the territory. As long as he's scoring touchdowns, he can do what he wants.