THE CATCH RELIVED

An oral history of Odell’s incredible grab

The season was sliding toward forgettable. It was late November and the Giants were in the midst of their worst season in a decade, when the Cowboys came to MetLife Stadium. The future, though, looked better. After missing the first month of the season with a hamstring injury, wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. had started showing why he was worth the Giants’ first-round pick. Stardom didn’t seem far, but it was closer than anyone knew.

With one eye-popping, jaw-dropping one-handed touchdown catch, Beckham stopped the world from spinning, blending athleticism, art and the impossible. It was one catch, but that’s like saying David was one sculpture or the Gettysburg Address was one speech.

For many, it was the greatest catch in the history of football.

Heading into another Giants-Cowboys prime-time showdown, The Post interviewed 16 people who witnessed the unforgettable Nov. 23 night in New Jersey. Here are their accounts of “The Catch”:

The Giants (3-7) had lost to the Cowboys, 31-21, on Oct. 19 in Texas, and were on a five-game losing streak, while the Cowboys (7-3) had won the past three meetings between the division rivals.

Drew Esocoff, director of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football”: Giants games and Cowboys games always feel like big deals. New York-Dallas just sounds like a big game, even if both teams are lousy.

Bob Papa, Giants radio play-by-play voice: The Giants were reeling at the

time, and this was one last gasp as far as saving the season. The game had a much more intense feeling. It felt like an all or nothing kind of game.

Giants running back Andre Williams: We were still trying to figure out our identity on offense in the first game. The second time around, I feel like we were much more prepared.

More than 20 million viewers tuned in to the game.

Giants cornerback Jayron Hosley: When we play Dallas, there’s always a lot of hype. On a Sunday night, you can feel the magnitude.

Giants tight end Larry Donnell: I was throwing up a couple times before the game. You know you’re playing in front of everybody. The nerves were going a little bit, but it’s more excitement. It’s cool. It’s prime time. You have a little swagger about yourself. You know you’re gonna hear about it the next day.

Beckham Jr.: You know what’s at stake. You know everybody’s watching you. It’s all eyes on you.

In the Oct. 19 game against the Cowboys, Beckham scored two touchdowns in his third career game. The following Monday, Beckham recorded a careerhigh eight receptions and 156 yards against the Colts. He then averaged more than 100 yards in his next two games.

Papa: If you were watching him catching footballs when he was rehabbing, it was breathtaking. People would just stop to watch. Every week he’d make some incredible catches, but it was only practice. There was nothing live coming at him.

Donnell: His first game out against Atlanta when he scored his first touch----

down, he went up north to grab it. He’d been doing that. He just needed to get back healthy so he could do his thing.

Former Cowboys/current Giants wide receiver Dwayne Harris: He was definitely coming on the scene. He had a couple big games prior to [the catch]. He didn’t play a few games early in the season, so a lot of guys didn’t really know what he was capable of doing.

Cowboys safety Barry Church: I didn’t really know much about him other than he was a first-rounder from LSU who had good speed and was able to catch the ball.

NBC sideline reporter Michele Tafoya: Before each game we have a meeting with a handful of players and Odell was one of them. He came in and was kind of dressed funky, and then there was the hair. He could not have been nicer. I remember thinking, “All right, this is an interesting new guy on the team.” … He was an unknown entity to us. At that time, it was, let’s get to know this kid.

Beckham caught the game’s first pass, then capped a first quarter drive with a 3-yard touchdown catch, giving the Giants a 7-0 lead. Following a Cowboys field goal, the Giants drove to Dallas’ 43-yardline, with Eli Manning converting a third-and-12

pass to Daniel Fells on the final play of the firstquarter.

Beckham Jr.: I was telling my trainer, I said, “Watch, I’m gonna score right here,” and [the first quarter ended before the next play]. I didn’t think we were [still] going to run the play, but we ended up running it again.

Williams: It was play-action. Eli gave me the fake and looked downfield to throw it. He was definitely looking at Odell from the start.

Donnell: Eli rolled to the right and I was there blocking. We just had to hold them off long enough.

Giants quarterback Eli Manning: [Beckham] was probably a little quick on the out-and-up. He probably could have sold it a little bit longer and been a little bit more open, but he was a little quick. Still, gave him a shot.

Giants wide receiver Reuben Randle: I was open on the play. I was coming across the middle of the field on an in-cut, and I remember just seeing the ball traveling past me in the air. [Manning] stuck with [Beckham] and just went for it. I just watched it travel.

Beckham Jr.: You just run the route and only can hope, you want to make sure that you’re ready for the ball to be in the air. I saw it up in the air and you just have to go get it.

Church: It was man-to-man coverage, he was on the far side and I was the middle-of-the-field safety. I remember Eli Manning kind of looked me off, then went back to the other side. I was just trying to hustle over there to help my cornerback out. It was good coverage.

Harris: Brandon Carr grabbed him. We thought [Beckham] was out of bounds.

Randle: I didn’t expect the ball to be that

far out of bounds that [Beckham] had to reach back and try to catch it like that.

Running a shared tight rope on the sideline, Carr fell and Beckham leapt while bending backwards, grasping the ball with just a few fingers. Beckham landed on his back in the end zone and two flags flew in front of him, securing the ball against his chest without ever touching the ball with his left hand.

Donnell: I looked at Weston [Richburg] and I’m like, “Did he just do that?” I don’t think this is real.

Giants defensive tackle Jay Bromley: It cleared the benches. It was crazy.

Manning: I knew it was a good catch, probably didn’t know how good. Then I saw a flag, didn’t know if it was on him or if it was a push-off or if he had gone out of bounds. They were reviewing it.

Esocoff: A frustrating thing as a director, you want to start cutting around to reaction shots, but you can’t do anything until the referee gives the signal whether it’s a catch.

Papa: The entire stadium was watching whether he caught the ball or not and everybody kind of lost sight that it was also a touchdown. … When we saw the replay and what actually occurred, that’s kind of when all hell broke loose.

Tafoya: It’s always fun when a replay airs inside the building on the big screen and the way a crowd then reacts a second time. It happened so fast, but in slo-mo, you could see he was almost horizontal and parallel to the ground, with his arm extended.

Manning: You kind of analyze it and see where his eyes are, behind his head and just the number of fingers on it and just how it got stuck in there. … Just an unbelievable effort and concentration and ability and still pretty incredible looking at it every time.

Bromley: They just kept replaying it on the Jumbotron over and over.

Harris: You could only scratch your head and wonder how he caught that. That is the all-time No. 1 greatest catch.

Cowboys cornerback Brandon Carr: It was a great grab. Kudos to him.

Church: It was just one of the greatest catches in NFL history. … I was probably three or four yards away from the whole thing happening. … For him to be able to stay in-bounds. … It was just an unbelievable play.

Randle: I’ve seen him do that since he stepped on campus at LSU. I wasn’t sur- prised by it. I was more amazed and caught up in the moment. It was special and I was just glad to be there.

Papa: There was a buzz in the building that would not die down.

Outside the stadium, the buzz was even bigger. “The Catch” took over Twitter, triggering instant acclaim from LeBron James, Mike Trout, Michael Irvin, John Cusack, Matt Lauer, Elizabeth Banks and countless other celebrities.

Papa: That’s where social media comes into play. He makes the catch, NBC’s showing replays of it, LeBron James is tweeting it to his millions of followers and other athletes are, too. That’s the power of NBC in prime time. If that game is at one in the afternoon in the middle of a slew of other NFL games, maybe it doesn’t go as viral. It just elevated it to a whole other level. It became a cultural phenomenon. Suddenly, Odell Beckham Jr. was transformed into a megastar. Joe Horrigan, VP of communications for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and NFL historian: The type of media coverage and instant access that we have today makes things easier to see than any time in the 96 years of the NFL. I’m sure there were games between two cellar-dweller teams where there was an outstanding play that no one ever saw or wasn’t shared with the rest of the world.

Tafoya: It was at night, so you’re playing under the lights. That looks different on television. It really, really does. … I think the folks at home had more of a treat than the folks in the stadium.

Esocoff: One segment prior to that we showed a highlight package of the catches he was making in pregame.

Tafoya: He was making all kinds of acrobatic catches and our crew put together a highlight reel and put it against some kind of classical ballet music. Sometimes in television you just get really lucky with your timing.

Esocoff: Every time he was back on the field we had an isolated camera on him.

Tafoya: His star shot up that night. That was part of the fun. It was what everyone was talking about Monday morning.

Beckham: I didn’t notice [the spectacle] right at the moment, but after everything settled down it kind of all hit me. … Things haven’t been the same since then.

The Giants led 21-10 at halftime, but lost 31-28, following Tony Romo’s 13-yard gamewinning touchdown pass to Dez Bryant with 1:11 left in the fourth quarter. Beckham finished with 10 receptions for 146 yards and two touchdowns.

Papa: Giants fans have almost taken that catch and put it in a different game. It’s like the catch happened in a different time and a different place.

Cowboys coach Jason Garrett: It certainly was a big play in the game, but our guys did a really good job putting that behind us. … That said a lot about us.

Randle: We left a lot of plays out there. We started out pretty good and then slowed down a little bit. We had a chance to win and we just fell short.

Papa: [Beckham’s] doing his postgame interview in the media swarm and he said the bottom line was they lost the game. That’s what sticks in his mind more than anything else, that they didn’t win that night.

For the third straight season, the Giants missed the playoffs, finishing 6-10. Despite playing just 12 games, Beckham was named the Offensive Rookie of the Year, finishing with1,305 receiving yards, 12 touchdowns and a plethora of records .His jersey from the game is now in the Hall of Fame.

Horrigan: When we’re talking about a singular act of athleticism, I can’t think of anything else like that we have. … If 10 years from now, Odell Beckham is announcing his retirement and is a Hall of Fame candidate, we can’t go back and say, “Gee, I wish we had gotten that jersey.” You try to project what might be of even more interest as the years go by. He’s someone we will likely hear from more in the future. Esocoff: A couple weeks after the catch, we were talking to Jeremy Hill from the Bengals and we asked how that catch ranked out of what he’d seen from Beckham and he said, “Not in the top 20.” He said they would see stuff like that every day in practice at LSU. He would put on shows. Can you imagine that? He said not in the top 20.

Giants co-owner Steve Tisch: What I remember most vividly is Odell saying, essentially, there are more to come, and when it’s all said and done, hopefully that’s not the best.

Bromley: He’s got some tricks up his sleeve. He could pull another one out.

Tafoya: With him, the probability is high. He delivered that night. Now, you have to be ready for him to break out again.