Odell Beckham Jr. lit a fuse in an interview with ESPN this week. Whether it helps the team explode offensively or detonates the locker room will be determined on the field against the Panthers on Sunday afternoon.
In the wide-ranging interview, Beckham told ESPN's Josina Anderson that he doesn't feel he is being used to his full potential, thinks opposing defenses are out-scheming the Giants, declined to say whether Eli Manning is the root of the team's offensive struggles, and would not say he is happy being in New York with the Giants. This happened less than two months after the wide receiver signed a five-year extension with $65 million guaranteed and a potential for $95 million.
"I haven't been in this situation. I haven't been in the place where I felt like I could really go out and do everything that I'm capable of doing," Beckham said. "I don't get 20 targets like some other receivers, you know."
The interview was so incendiary that, according to Jay Glazer of Fox Sports, head coach Pat Shurmur was "livid" and Beckham apologized to the team in a meeting on Saturday night.
"I feel like in the past five years, they found a way to run a Cover 2, keep everything in front, and that's how they played me," Beckham said. "And there's no way to _ how do we beat this? I feel like I'm being out-schemed, and then I also don't have a chance to, like, do something where I've got to take a slant and go 60. And not to say that's not fun, but it's like I want some easy touchdowns too. I watch everybody across the league. All the top receivers get the ball the way that they, you know, should. And if they don't, they say something about it."
Asked if Manning is the problem, Beckham said: "I don't know."
"I feel like he's not going to get out the pocket. He's not _ we know Eli's not running it. But is it a matter of time issue? Can he still throw it, yeah, but it's been pretty safe and it's been, you know ... cool catching shallow (routes) and trying to take it to the house. But I'm, you know, I want to go over the top of somebody."
Asked if he is happy in New York, Beckham said it was a "tough question."
"Obviously, I love seeing the sunshine all the time," he said. "I love, you know, I love being in L.A. I just like that atmosphere, but this is where I'm at. I remember before games, I used to get that. I used to get butterflies, like good butterflies. I was anxious. And now when I step on the field, it's something completely different. It's not butterflies.
"It's like I want to be here, like I've been waiting to get here this whole time," he continued. "I feel like a caged animal who gets this _ it's my 60 minutes of playtime. You know, I can play with other people. We can play nice, or we don't have to play nice. But I get to play, and I get to do all this. This is my time to be out of the cage. You know, if somebody's messing with me during my time to be out of the cage, like, it's going to be a problem."
Beckham said the hardest part of the offensive struggles have been watching other teams prosper. More points have been scored through the first four weeks this season than any other in NFL history.
"Heated," he said of what it's like to watch other teams' offensive success, specifically the Rams. "You know, because I know what I'm capable of. I know what I feel like I bring to the table each and every day. And that's all I want to do. That's literally all I want to do. I _ I've given up _ personally sacrificed a lot of things recently. Just giving it up, just because this is all I want to do. ... We going to get it right, as long as I'm here, like I just _ I don't see myself losing, and I hate losing. I don't want to be the one at the end of the career who, 'Oh, he had a great career, and all this, no _ no rings, no none of that.' Like, that's not my _ that's not why I came here to play. That's not my M.O."
