BRITISH INVASION
Odell & Co. must keep cool against feisty Rams in London battle A
100-YARD FIELD across the pond normally reserved for rugby will serve as a sanctuary Sunday morning for the New York Giants, from John Mara down to new kicker Robbie Gould, a 60-minute football recess from the sorry domestic violence debacle they left behind with Josh Brown, at the end of a week when Nettie Beckham was merely a tempest in a teapot compared with the horrific details of Molly Brown’s abuse.
Or, as the Brits prefer to say, a storm in a teacup.
The Giants’ season resumes with Breakfast With Beckham at 9:30 a.m. EDT, fish and chippiness against the roughhouse Rams across the pond in London.
Pass the juice, pass the eggs, pass the bacon, pass the toast, pass the coffee. And pass the football to Odell Beckham Jr. It is the best chance the Giants have to give their fans a temporary deodorant from the stench of the shameful moral defeat their franchise has suffered as Mara tried to play the part of Father Flanagan in a too-tolerant league that pays lip service to zero tolerance and too readily encourages Boys Will Be Boys Towns when it comes to domestic violence against women.
“Right now,” Beckham said in London, “the main focus has to be London and the Rams.”
It would be perfectly understandable for the Rams’ secondary to get a serious case of the collywobbles trying to keep Beckham from wrecking the game the way he did against the Ravens.
Beckham’s sore body mostly has recovered, and if he isn’t slowed by jet lag, there is every likelihood the Rams will become knackered by lunchtime here in the States chasing him around Twickenham Stadium.
Beckham has become a household name here, and he will have the chance to be remembered as another famous Beckham there by the time he and the Giants head back to Heathrow Airport.
God save the Queen — not to mention Ben McAdoo — if Beckham’s overflowing passion results in a penalty that hurts his team. McAdoo certainly will be chuffed if Beckham is drama-free and Nettie Beckham-free for a day. The Rams have a reputation for being kind of gobby, so Beckham will need to steel himself for the trash talk and ignore the noise. The last thing Beckham and the Giants need is another Josh Norman-esque kerfuffle. That almost assuredly would get Beckham a real bollocking from McAdoo.
“They’re a very physical team,” Beckham said. “A very chippy team. I love the way they play.”
Either way, he is the star of this show. Beckham’s teammates are confident that the Rams agitators won’t make him mad as a bag of ferrets. They laugh at outsiders’ portrayals of him as a diva. In their eyes, all the attention on his antics overshadowed his true grit and warrior spirit ignoring a painful hip pointer that might have sidelined mere mortals and lifting his team in its most desperate hour.
The NFL, which has had a rough public relations week — not to mention year, not to mention several years — couldn’t ask for a bigger attraction for the millennials than Beckham, or a better ambassador for its global designs than Eli Manning. Manning-to-Beckham saved the day against the Ravens, but McAdoo and the Giants are living dangerously if they expect them to do it for them every week.
Jerry Reese didn’t spend more than million free-agent dollars for a quarterback such as Case Keenum to have his way against his upgraded defense.
Reese didn’t spend more than 200 million free agent dollars for safety Landon Collins to lead the club with two sacks. In other words, as hard and as long as Jason Pierre-Paul and Olivier Vernon have played, with Janoris Jenkins anchoring a secondary with improved health, there is no reason why they should fly home still with only one sack each.
Keenum is coming off his second career 300-yard game, but daring him to beat Manning by slowing running back Todd Gurley is the game plan. Threats such as Gurley are why defensive tackle Damon “Snacks” Harrison was signed.
McAdoo keeps talking about running the ball better, though Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald will present a problem.
“We just gotta keep doing what we’re doing up front, keep making sure what we know what we’re doing on every look, and keep attacking each look with full intensity, and one of these times it’ll break,” Weston Richburg said.
If it doesn’t break, Breakfast With Beckham will once again be asked to come to the rescue, especially with Rams corner Trumaine Johnson sidelined. McAdoo, expressing his confidence in his players on both sides of the ball, turned into the riverboat gambler on fourth down against the Ravens and with Gould likely rusty, it would behoove Manning to have a touchdown mindset.
“We want him to ask for forgiveness, not permission,” McAdoo told Giants. com. “That’s how we want the quarterback position to be played here.”
Beyond taking a 4-3 record and momentum into the bye is the fact the Giants have lost three straight conference games to drop to 2-3 and cannot afford a fourth straight.
Pass the English muffins. And pass the football to Odell Beckham Jr. An escape from New York.