SMILE BE DAMNED
McAdoo doesn’t care about Odell grin, backs receiver’s ref critique
If you want to engage in any Odell Beckham Jr. bashing for the way he smiled on the sideline in Pittsburgh or for his ripping of the officiating after the Giants’ 24-14 loss to the Steelers, take it somewhere else. Ben McAdoo is not having any of it.
The first-year head coach staunchly defended his thirdyear receiver after another game in which Beck ham attracted attention to himself for his actions on the sideline and his comments after the game.
Beckham’ s reaction to Brown’s spectacular 22-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter was to smile — he and Brown spent time together Saturday night and are fast friends. Beckham explained afterward he wished Brown did not score against the Giants; the smile was an expression of respect and admiration for the catch.
“Odell, the reaction t hat I saw from the TV copy, to me was, ‘Hey, he made his play and now let’s go make ours,’ ” McAdoo said Monday. “That is really the way we go about it as a team. If we want to be the best in the league at something, let’s be in the best in the league at playing the next play and to me, that was his reaction.’’ Beckham wa s the one to post a video of himself and Brown dancing and c l owning around the d ay before the game, and afte r the game he already sensed there was some social-media backlash to his smile coming across the TV screen.
“You can’t really sit there and worry about what everybody else has to say about something or somebody’ s mad because I smiled when he scored,’’ Beckham said. “That man’s like a brother to me, he takes me under his wing in the offseason, we train, he’s just a good guy. It’s not like I’m sitting there rooting for him against my team, like ‘Man, tear it up.’ ’’
McAdoo did not echo Beckham’s harsh critique of Terry McAulay’s officiating crew. Beckham described an offensive pass interference penalty on him as “a horrible call’’ and went even further railing against a crew that he experienced problems with in a game last season against the Panthers and this season with the Redskins.
“I don’ t really think we should have this crew any more when the Giants are playing,” Beckham said, “with the past history and everything that’s gone on.’’
McAdoo did not quite go that far.
“I would say that I thought there were a few times yesterday that he may have been interfered with,’’ McAdoo said.
The Giants will send that play, along with several others, into the league to get some answers.
“We have a process to gain clarification on calls that are made during the course of a game,’’ McAdoo said. “We’re going to get plenty of use out of that process this week. Other than that, we need to focus on what we can control and learn from this game and prepare for the next.”
Beckham does not have to worry about seeing McAulay’s crew again anytime soon. An officiating crew can only work two games in any one season for a particular team. If the Giants get to the playoffs, they will see reassembled crews, as officials are graded and then re assigned for post season assignments and thus do not work in their regular crews.
Eli Manning cautioned that Beckham’s verbal barrage on the officials could backfire on him.
“He’s got to be careful with that,’’ Manning said Monday night on WFAN. “With officials, you want to kill them with kindness.’’