QUAD DAMMIT!
Odell Beckham Jr. is ruled out for Sunday’s game vs. Titans, and Giants will have to turn to the receiving corps that stepped up last week. Odell to miss 2nd straight game with leg injury as Giants need a win to keep slim hopes alive
Pat Shurmur might want to stay off Facebook this weekend.
Odell Beckham Jr., ruled out for a second straight game Sunday with a bruised quad, gave a thorough account of his injury and its progression in Friday night’s transparent episode of his “I AM MORE: OBJ” Facebook Watch and UNINTERRUPTED series.
Shurmur had said Monday in answer to one question on Beckham’s progress that “I encourage our players not to talk about their injuries. So hopefully that’s about all you’ll get out of it.”
But Beckham, in a video recorded earlier this week, confirmed he has what the Daily News previously had identified as consistent with a “hematoma,” or a mass of blood pooled in one area of tissue. Beckham also specified it was his “left quad.” And he didn’t stop there. Beckham described the chronology of how an injury he initially sustained Nov. 25 at Philadelphia — then played through on Dec. 2 against Chicago — worsened to the point that he couldn’t play in or travel to last Sunday’s win in Washington.
It included aggravating his quad late in last Thursday’s practice, having a doctor visit him at home to help him decide to get further evaluated, and undergoing an MRI at the Hospital for Special Surgery — the same place he had his ankle surgery on Oct. 9 of last year.
“(The hematoma) was just there, and I worked on it. I got dry-needled, I got the same kind of treatments I had done,” Beckham said in the video. “And then (last) Wednesday we had a very hard practice. I had probably some of the highest sprint-speed distances. I had a real good practice. Like a real, real good practice. I felt amazing.
“(But then last) Thursday, real amazing practice through the 90% of the practice, and then ... I kinda was saying that I may need to back off just a little bit, just a little bit,” Beckham continued. “But I’m just competitive. I just kept working hard. And it was the last play, last period of practice. I went and excelled for a ball, and I just felt like something weird happened.”
OBJ said he felt so unnerved that “I texted my boy on the way home like immediately” saying “I think I strained my quad, I think I pulled my quad or something like that.”
So a “doc(tor) came over” and “he was just working on it and he was like, ‘Do you think you did something more? Because I’m telling you it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel good.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I do (think it’s something more).’ So I ended up just calling over.”
Beckham said he then “had to drive all the way to the city (to) get an MRI.
“I’m claustrophobic already, so I hate being in the little machine or whatever,” he said. “Especially (at) the same hospital I had surgery (in).”
The scan, of course, confirmed Beckham couldn’t play in Washington. And he said in the video that he now is “working trying to get right,” but he specified that he “probably wouldn’t run ’til the back end of this week.”
Then he added: “You push it now and it could be something that’s worse in the long run.”
And potentially risking further injury is congruent with what doctors who spoke to the Daily News said: A hematoma can be managed and drained, but they also require caution because hematomas can indicate larger underlying issues, such as tendon or muscle injuries.
Beckham’s honesty about the injury that continues to sideline him as the Giants (5-8) host the Tennessee Titans (7-6) is refreshing. But it’s not in line with Shurmur’s policies on injuries.
Shurmur on Friday called Beckham “day-today” going into Week 16 and said there had been “no setbacks.” And it’s true Beckham was hopeful to play at the start of this week.
Still, if the Giants lose Sunday and are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, it could make sense to shut Beckham down with the team no longer playing for the postseason.