O, JUST SHUT UP!
GIANTS OWNER RIPS INTO BIG-MOUTH BECKHAM
One of Odell Beckham Jr.’s most telling comments in his controversial ESPN interview did not surface until reporter Josina Anderson released the full conversation last weekend.
Beckham, asked about how much accountability Eli Manning is taking for the sorry state of the Giants’ offense, lamented the disconnect between his lack of opportunities and the disproportionate amount of blame he nevertheless receives.
“If we lose and it’s because of me, I want to be able to take that,” Beckham said. “I don’t want to have to just take it and it not be (because of ) me. I want to be able to put it on my shoulders. I’m ready to carry it. That’s it. And if I don’t get the opportunity to do that AND I have to take the blame for it, it’s gonna be a problem.”
Beckham should not be saying this publicly, right? Of course not. Except ... what if I told you that Giants coowner John Mara validated all of OBJ’s concerns about Big Blue’s ongoing Blame Game when he spoke at Tuesday morning’s NFL owners meetings in Manhattan?
What if Mara, in his first comments since Beckham’s ill-conceived interview, did exactly what Beckham said: painted the receiver as the problem when the quarterback — and Manning’s enabling at Mara’s hand — is the real issue with the team’s performance?
A frustrated Mara said Beckham “needs to do a little more playing and a little less talking.”
“I wish he would create headlines by his play on the field as opposed to what he says and does off the field,” Mara told reporters.
But on Manning, outside of generally alluding to the fact that “everybody needs to play better,” Mara stressed, “We still believe in him,” and pitied the quarterback as “the punching bag” even though “a lot of guys need to play better right now; it’s not just him.”
If Beckham could respond directly and honestly to Mara’s comments — and hey, based on what he’s done these last few weeks, anything’s possible — all he would have to do is shove
both of his hands forward and say: “See?!”
Mara screwed up Manning’s benching last season and mistakenly reinstated him for the foreseeable future as the unchallenged franchise quarterback at 37. Manning has played poorly behind Dave Gettleman’s new-yet-still-shaky offensive line. The offense (19.5 points per game) still stinks. And yet Tuesday’s headline was about how much of a problem Beckham is.
You have to admit it: Odell has a point.
But there is another side to this drama, too, that OBJ needs to see and seemingly can’t.
Beckham’s recent controversial comments to ESPN and UNINTERRUPTED would have been praiseworthy if he were employed as a tabloid sports columnist (though he wouldn’t have been the first to write them!). But he is a highlypaid player on the team he is publicly criticizing, from quarterback to coach to teammates’ heart to the New York market. So it’s different.
A lot of what Beckham is saying is true, especially his justified lack of confidence in Manning.
Pat Shurmur on Tuesday even made a telling reference to Manning’s opening-drive interception against the Eagles. The coach said stalling in the red zone had been an issue, and at the end of his answer after a long pause, he added: “We also spotted them seven points, too.”
Some people choose to hear the message there, and some don’t.
But whether Beckham is correct is immaterial in that he, as a player, can’t be saying it publicly, throwing people under the bus and creating a distraction that turns a losing team into a circus.
The problem with Mara’s comments, on the other hand, is that they demonstrated how much the Giants actually can do about Beckham’s misbehavior now that they have given him a mega-contract extension with a $20 million signing bonus: nothing.
Mara fined Beckham for the ESPN interview, and Shurmur ripped into him, which are good steps, but ultimately their only recourse is to cross their fingers and hope he doesn’t do it again.
Because his response to that fine — and to a mandate to address his teammates — was to go on Facebook and say that: “I don’t feel like you deserve an apology for one, and I don’t feel like it’s necessary for me to apologize for how I feel.” Great. They can’t trade him right now and eat that signing bonus all at once. They’re also a better team when he’s on the field anyway. They had their chance to trade him when they were discussing this very scenario with the Rams in the spring, and they didn’t do it.
To be clear, Shurmur isn’t going to back down and let Beckham continue to go rogue. The coach reiterated Tuesday that “when things happen, we talk behind the scenes and we’re trying to make everybody as good as they can be in really all areas of their life,” which is his way of saying he’s continuing to address it.
Still, Shurmur’s initial response to Mara’s criticisms of OBJ was a fatigued: “I’ve addressed the Odell stuff.” And that’s because all the drama and defeat are wearing on everyone.
Beckham won’t stop talking. Mara is talking about how Beckham needs to stop talking. And Shurmur is tired of talking about all of it.
(Beckham) needs to do a little more playing and a little less talking. JOHN MARA