‘Reluctant approval’ for Beckham deal
PHOENIX — John Mara called his sign-off on the Odell Beckham trade “a reluctant approval.”
Steve Tisch called the decision “one of the toughest we’ve had to make in a long time — many, many years.”
Both Giants co-owners said Sunday at the Arizona Biltmore that they genuinely struggled with OK’ing Beckham’s March 12 trade to the Cleveland Browns. And they didn’t order it; the idea and offer was brought to them.
But Mara said yes because “I think what we’re getting in return is going to make us hopefully a better team in the long run if we make the right decisions.”
“I will tell you that it was a reluctant approval on my part because I happen to like Odell very much and I recognize the unique talent that he has,” Mara said. “But I understood that we have a lot of holes that we need to fill.”
Mara made clear, though, how much trust he’s put in GM Dave Gettleman to make it worth shipping away such a talented star. He granted that Beckham’s off-field distractions were an issue during his time as a Giant but said it wasn’t like ownership was anxious to get rid of him.
“Honestly, there were times where it did bother me, and I had conversations with him about it,” Mara said. “But it was never to the point where we said to Dave, ‘You’ve got to get rid of this guy.’ It never reached that point. But is it a factor in the final decision? Yeah, it’s a factor.
“He’s a good guy,” Mara added. “He did a lot of good things with us. He was terrific with the Make-A-Wish kids that we brought into the facility every week. It wasn’t like we were getting rid of a guy who was going to be a criminal. Yeah, he was somebody where there always were some extra issues that he brought into the building every day, but it wasn’t to the point where it was unmanageable.”
While Mara’s and Tisch’s praise for Beckham the person is genuine, though, it’s stretching the truth to minimize OBJ’s off-field impact on the decision to deal him.
The Giants re-signed him to a mega-contract extension last August because they believed it could work long-term, but the trials of Gettleman’s and Pat Shurmur’s first season with Beckham convinced them they would rather proceed without him if they could get good value in return.
Mara said re-signing Beckham “seemed like the right decision at the time” because “at the time we made the decision, we had a new head coach, we did not want it to be a distraction and we did want him to be a Giant for a long period of time.”