Beckham expecting cheap shots from Jets

Forget about the $200,000 watch Odell Beckham Jr. stubbornly plans to wear Sept. 16 when the Browns play the Jets on “Monday Night Football” in the Meadowlands.

Beckham expects defensive coordinator Gregg Williams to coach Jets players to injure him to take him out of the game. The subject came up during a press conference Sept. 12 with the 26-year-old wide receiver when Beckham was asked whether he expects Williams to let a Jets cornerback cover him one-on-one so the Jets could use more players in blitzes.

“The only thing I’m buying is probably to watch out for the cheap shots and dirty hits and all the things he likes to teach,” Beckham said.

“That’s pretty much all we have to watch for. Other than that, I don’t expect much man to man. I don’t expect any of that.

“If I was a coach, I’d never teach what he teaches, but that’s just what he does. It’s a very good defense, aside from all the other stuff he teaches. It’s very good. It’s disruptive. He makes it hard for offenses.”

Beckham used the occasion to accuse Williams of coaching the Browns to hurt him on Aug. 21, 2017, in a preseason game when Beckham played for the Giants and Williams was the Browns defensive coordinator. Former Browns cornerback Briean Boddy-Calhoun went low to tackle Beckham at the knee, resulting

in Beckham being knocked out of the game with a high left ankle sprain. Beckham missed four weeks, including the Giants regular 2017 opener. He returned in the second week and broke his left ankle in his fourth game back. He said he returned too soon and that the first injury led directly to the season-ending injury.

“It’s preseason,” Beckham said. “It’s like a known rule; in preseason nobody in the NFL is really out to do stuff like that. I had players on this team telling me that that’s what (Williams) was telling them to do, take me out of the game. And it’s preseason. So you just know who he is. That’s the man calling the plays.”

Williams is expected to speak Sept. 13 during his weekly press conference with media covering the Jets.

Williams was suspended

all of 2012 by the NFL for is involvement in a bounty program he ran in 2009 as Saints defensive coordinator in which players were paid bonuses for injuring opponents.

Williams was reinstated in 2013 and hired as defensive coordinator of the Titans. His reputation followed him. He was hired as Browns defensive coordinator in 2017. He would not talk about the Bountygate scandal, but a story he told last season about his days as head coach of the Bills revealed who he is.

The Browns signed safety Jermaine Whitehead on Nov. 7 last year, one day after the Packers waived him. Two days earlier, Whitehead was disqualified for a blow to the head in a game with the Patriots. The penalty left the Packers a defender short and led to a New England touchdown. Williams was asked

whether Whitehead had a reputation as a dirty player. Williams said he was unaware of one, but then, after the cameras stopped rolling, he talked about the time the Bills signed Fletcher in March of 2002. He said someone in the Bills organization told him Fletcher, a linebacker, got two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for poking players in the eye the year before when Fletcher played for the Rams.

“I told him, ‘London Fletcher doesn’t know it, but he just got a raise,’” Williams said he told the person from the Bills. Williams was promoted from defensive coordinator to Browns interim head coach Oct. 29 last season while retaining the title of defensive coordinator when Hue Jackson was fired. Williams was fired in both roles Jan. 9. The Jets hired him Jan. 16.