Showing up to OTAs is one Giant step in right direction

NEITHER TOM Brady, Julio Jones or Aaron Donald showed up to their respective NFL teams’ first day of voluntary organized team activities (OTAs) on Monday, absences all intended to send a message either about their contracts or their displeasure with their present circumstances.

Odell Beckham Jr. did not stay away from the Giants’ facility, though. On Monday, Beckham showed up.

And just as OBJ is harshly criticized when he does something immature or irresponsible that detracts from the team, he deserves to be acknowledged when he makes the mature, responsible decision and does the right thing.

And that’s what he has done so far this offseason, making every effort to demonstrate his commitment to the club’s direction and culture under new head coach Pat Shurmur, despite the organization’s conversations with other teams about trading Beckham in March and despite the absence of the long-term contract Beckham covets and deserves.

Now, granted, Beckham’s attendance is at least in part a reaction to that same near-separation from a franchise that had grown tired of holding its breath until the next controversy or video hit social media. So Beckham’s OTA attendance to some extent demonstrates his acknowledgement that he has erred and recognizes he must fall in line with expectations as a face of the team in order to keep their trust and receive more of their money.

But Beckham also is a businessman, an internationally recognizable Nike brand icon, and the biggest reason at the moment that Giants fans buy tickets for games at MetLife Stadium on Sundays. And if GM Dave Gettleman continues to drag his feet as Beckham continues to attend voluntary practices, sooner or later this is going to turn.

Players like Beckham, the Rams’ Donald and the Falcons’ Jones, after all, have a right to stand up for what they are worth, and skipping team activities is one of the easiest ways to make that point. Sometimes, in fact, their absence is their greatest — and their only — leverage. Beckham at the moment is not resorting to the tactic he employed last offseason, when he skipped all 10 of the Giants’ voluntary OTAs to make the point that he wanted negotiations to begin on a long-term contract extension. He is now doing the opposite: consciously and actively participating in order to prove himself and get the deal sealed.

However, every time a Giants executive makes a comment like co-owner John Mara did on May 8 — that there isn’t a “sense of urgency” to get Beckham’s deal done, and that Mara could could echo Gettleman’s patience “all spring, all summer, as long as it takes” — it pushes this Beckham situation closer to the brink once again.

For while Beckham has shown remorse, he is not going to grovel at the Giants’ feet forever hoping he gets his contract. It wouldn’t be surprising if he resisted significant live action without that contract, considering the broken ankle he suffered last season and the damage another injury would do to his market value.

And trust me, if Gettleman intends to use the full weight of the Giants’ leverage here and demand that Beckham plays this coming season on his fifth-year option, well, training camp will be a long and dramatic process for just about anyone in and around the Giants franchise.

Again, Beckham is out to demonstrate right now that he no longer will be the source of such distractions or frustration. But if the Giants push their best player to his last resort, how could you blame him for using it?

No, the trade market is no longer what it was in March, when the Giants and Rams talked a possible OBJ trade. So Beckham’s options now, if he held out, seem comparatively limited to playing nice with the Giants or not playing at all.

Still, the Giants had a chance to trade Beckham earlier this spring and apparently asked for too high a price. They are the ones who held onto the star receiver knowing that if they kept him, they had to pay him. And Beckham will not forget, despite showing good faith in attending these workouts, that the Giants considered getting rid of him. Unfortunately, Beckham hasn’t addressed the New York media here in New Jersey since Oct. 4, 2017, and he has done only one limited interview since on Feb. 3 at the Super Bowl. So he has not spoken extensively on many of the major developments in his relationship with the organization the last several months.

The closest we came to getting a window into Beckham’s feelings was when No. 2 pick Saquon Barkley made OBJ sound repentant in April. Barkley said Beckham “kept telling me he wishes he knew the things he knew now at my age” and alluded to learning from “the mistakes that he made.”

Shurmur said Beckham “looks good” health-wise and claimed the Giants are holding him back from doing more than the handful of drills he did on Monday until “everything is healed to the fullest.” Beckham has looked great in social media videos he’s posted regularly of his personal workouts back in California and if he’s not medically cleared he’s pretty darn close.

If the Giants are waiting for Beckham simply to be medically cleared by their doctors before negotiating a contract, this shouldn’t take much longer. If they are waiting until the sixweek break between June’s mandatory minicamp and the start of training camp in late July, this will get much more tense.

And if Gettleman doesn’t sign Beckham by the first day of training camp, then it begs the question of how long the Giants intend to make OBJ pay for his past transgressions when so much of what he’s doing recently is so right.