HE’S STILL ‘O’ SO UNCERTAIN

Odell limited at practice, game status up in air

The Odell Beckham Jr. watch continues, but it’s hard to get too optimistic about him playing Monday night against the Lions.

The Giants wide receiver was limited in practice for the second straight day on Friday as he continues to recover from his sprained left ankle, which he admitted on Thursday would be a “six to eight week thing.”

While it is progress for Beckham, he has still yet to participate in a full practice in the last four weeks. The last two days were the Giants’ heaviest practices of the week as they have an easy day Saturday and walk-through on Sunday.

In the portion of practice open to the media, Beckham did take some snaps in team drills with Eli Manning, but it was without the defense or offensive line on the field.

Head coach Ben McAdoo provided a vague indication on how Beckham is progressing.

“He responded well to treatment. He responded well to his work yesterday,” he said. “Got a little bit more today, but he’s still limited.”

Beckham’s teammates did not provide much more detail, either.

“He looked good,” wide receiver Roger Lewis Jr. said. “Looked like he’s improving.”

It sounds positive, but it is still hard to get a gauge on the likelihood of him playing Monday.

The Giants held Beckham out to be a game-time decision last week, but Manning knew all along his star wide receiver likely was not going to play.

“The guy hadn’t practiced in three weeks. I never thought it was a reality of him playing (in Dallas),” Manning said on Wednesday. “If he would have come out there it might have been limited in certain things.”

Now Beckham is limited, which is a step forward. But will it be enough? The Giants certainly hope so. The offense struggled mightily against the Cowboys in Week 1, and while there are plenty of problems that need to be worked out to get it to improve, adding Beckham would make a significant difference.

“He’s definitely a big spark plug for the offense, can make things happen in a blink of an eye,” Sterling Shepard said.

Even if Beckham does play, it is unlikely he would be 100%, and he could be used merely as a decoy.

If he doesn’t play at all, the question then becomes whether or not the Giants offense can excel without Beckham — and the answer looked pretty clear based on their Week 1 loss to the Cowboys.

“Everybody has their own opinion. If that’s what they want to think then let them,” Shepard said. “But I don’t think that’s the case.”

Clearly, Shepard and the rest of the Giants offense remains confident, despite all the noise about the struggles and Beckham’s status.

“We’ll bounce back,” Shepard said. “We got into the film room and corrected some things. Been out on the practice field, getting the ball into playmakers hands and I think it’s going to look better.”

The Giants better hope so, or they will be in a lot of trouble.