The New York Giants can't let Odell Beckham Jr.'s behavior write the story of their season
Odell Beckham is spun.
The New York Giants wide receiver is doing more complaining than catching these days, his emotions spiraling out of control after a showdown with Washington Redskins cornerback and arch-rival Josh Norman two weeks ago.
There is talk of a sports psychiatrist, interviews where Beckham is saying he’s not having fun anymore, and first-year Giants head coach Ben McAdoo looking for an answer in the binder Tom Coughlin left on his desk (it’s not in there).
Beckham rose to fame with a spectacular one-handed catch in prime time. Since then it’s been a whirlwind for an outsider — a torrent of endorsements, media adulation, Lena Dunham (what was that?), and a scrutiny that only the New York media market can provide — one can only imagine how fast it’s been for the 23-year-old.
But all along, Beckham has been one of the best receivers in the NFL. That’s not the case this year, and if the Giants stand any chance of making the playoffs this year and avoiding what appears to be their 8-8 destiny, they need to get Beckham right. His emotional unrest is now affecting the entire team.
In the hyper-scrutinized world of sports, the term “distraction” is levied upon anything that doesn’t show up in the box score. Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful, in no way obstructive protest during the National Anthem is a “distraction”; crimes are whitewashed to become “distractions”; even the media, to whom the distractions are complained about, is a distraction.
It’s a term that’s lost almost all of its meaning in the last decade or so. Bill Belichick probably thinks that eating and drinking are distractions to people hashtag doing their job. Then again Twitter is a distraction, and so is this tablet computer.
But Beckham’s emotional unrest is a legitimate distraction because it’s actually affecting his play on the field. Beckham has three drops already this season — second-most in the NFL — and in the Monday night game against the Vikings, he seemed more interested in jawing and picking a fight with cornerback Xavier Rhodes than actually catching footballs and scoring points.
Right now, Beckham is all bark and no bite, and he’s parking indiscriminately at anything that walks.
Beckham is perhaps the single most critical cog in the Giants’ machine, which is predicated on a vertical passing game. The defense has known exactly what’s coming from the Giants’ offense for years now, and quarterback Eli Manning, behind what has been, at times, a porous offensive line, can’t execute the gameplan, defenses be damned, without a transcendent receiver on the field. Beckham is no longer that receiver— not in this state.
No one knows the answer as to how to get Beckham back on solid footing — least of all Beckham, it seems — but it appears that the Giants are willing to keep holding out hope that he’ll figure it out on his own.
That approach is going to only bring more losses and could have serious consequences off the field. Passiveness, one can argue, is what has brought about this situation.
The Giants need to formulate a gameplan for how to get Beckham back — whether that’s tough love or hugs — and execute it immediately. Their season rides on it.
