Ben McAdoo, the first-year head coach of the New York Giants, made a brief statement and took several questions from reporters after his team practised on Wednesday. The first nine questions happened to be about the Green Bay Packers, Sunday’s opponent. McAdoo was a Packers’ assistant for eight seasons, the last two as a coach for quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Asked if he was he’d feel a warm-and-fuzzy sense of nostalgia returning to Green Bay, McAdoo replied: “No. It will be a great challenge for us Sunday night. We look forward to it.”
McAdoo was talking about the game being a great challenge. He did not really say if it would be a challenge to prevent Odell Beckham Jr, the Giants’ fabulously talented but fabulously petulant wide receiver, from continuing to throw hissy fits, as he did in the Giants’ last two games, both losses. But Beckham has become a drama.
On Tuesday, Beckham said in an interview with ESPN: “I’m not having fun any more.”
Beckham caught only three passes for 23 yards against the Vikings – both single-game lows since the second game of his rookie season two years ago. He has 22 catches and no touchdowns in four games so far; he had 96 catches and 13 touchdowns last season. Teams have made it an even higher priority to blanket Beckham, and, as a bonus, have rattled him.
With the Giants trailing late in the second quarter by two touchdowns, Minnesota cornerback Xavier Rhodes bumped into Beckham late after an incomplete pass – but Beckham lunged back at Rhodes and drew a taunting penalty. This ploy has proven to work since Josh Norman, then with Carolina, famously clashed with Beckham last December.
Beckham did not talk to reporters on Wednesday, but after Monday’s game, he said this about what it was like to be him: “As tough as it is to understand for a 23-year-old who has been blessed with a lot – God has given me a lot of ability, amazing amount of everything – and it seems like it’s all working against you. But what are you gonna do, are you gonna back down or stand up? And I’ve never been one to back down.”
But his antics have become a distraction for his team, minimizing his contributions. The NFL runs like the military: if procedure is not followed, chaos is probably around the corner. After the questions about the Packers on Wednesday, McAdoo answered12 straight questions related to Beckham’s behavior. McAdoo said he wanted Beckham to keep playing with emotion, as long as he stays within the rules.
McAdoo had a work for what he wants, saying: “I like him as a salty, competitive player. That’s when he plays at his best. We just need to be productive when we’re doing it.”
At another news conference at the team’s practice facility in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Giants quarterback Eli Manning answered six straight questions about Beckham. Manning answered a question about Beckham’s no-fun comment by saying, predictably: “You have to ask him. It’s his words. No one likes losing and we just lost two in a row. It’s not fun to lose games. Last week, offensively, we didn’t play as well as we needed to, so it was a tough game and it’s not exactly fun playing a tough game.”
There was more. At teleconferences earlier Wednesday with New York reporters, Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy and Rodgers – who won’t even be on the field at the same time as Beckham – were asked about dealing with emotional players, well, like Beckham. Thirty miles to the west of the Giants’ practice compound, New York Jets wide receiver Brandon Marshall was asked about Beckham being criticized Tuesday, rather gently, by McAdoo and Manning.
“Those guys over there need to be really careful,” Marshall said of McAdoo. “Like, they don’t need to be speaking out on their teammate. They need to keep that in-house, because they could lose him. And I’m being honest, like they need to rally behind him and give him the support he needs and handle that stuff in-house, whether good or bad, because whether they like it or not, he’s the best player on that team. Coach coming out saying, ‘Oh, this, he needs to do — ’ No, that’s the wrong way. You’re playing with fire right there.”
And then Herman Edwards, the former NFL coach turned ESPN analyst, was asked Wednesday night about Marshall’s comments about Beckham.
(You’d think Marshall would rather talk about something else – like how to fix his own team. The Jets have won one of four games entering a clash Sunday in Pittsburgh against the Steelers, who mauled Kansas City in their last game Sunday, 43-14.)
The Beckham chatter was pretty ridiculous, but NFL teams play once a week, so there is a lot of down time and a lot of cyberspace to fill with “news”. Even the 70-year-old Tom Coughlin, the Giants’ former long-time coach, was asked Tuesday about Beckham by the CBS Sports Network. Coughlin said Beckham was a “distraction,” but he would like to help Beckham.
No. The only person who can really help Odell Beckham Jr is Odell Beckham Jr. With less than 15 minutes of action in a 60-minute game, the networks love the after-whistle jousting; it beats watching another injured player wheeled off. For those not interested in the second Presidential Debate, tune to the Giants-Packers game. Chances are likely that a camera will be isolated on Beckham on every offensive snap.
Hey. It fills time between plays, gives the commentators something to talk about, keeps people watching. Or maybe not.
Sports Media Watch reported Tuesday that 13.2 million watched the Giants-Vikings game on ESPN. Some 14.4 million watched Detroit play Seattle the same week last year and New England play Kansas City in the same week in 2014. All seven of the NFL’s telecast “windows” last week had a lower television rating than the same windows in 2015.
Outside Green Bay and New York, the only good reason to watch Giants-Packers instead of tuning away from Clinton-Trump II is to see if Beckham blows another gasket. He makes memorable plays – he almost made another sensational one-handed catch against the Vikings – but the league’s most marketable asset can’t stop acting up.
ESPN’s Ed Werder reported that an NFL source told him that officiating crews have been instructed to be aware of opponents who may try to taunt Beckham. Asked Wednesday if he thought teams would try to get into Beckham’s head, McAdoo said, “Like it’s hockey? Possibly.”
McAdoo continued: “I’m sure that teams aren’t really thrilled about him having the ball in his hands. He can do something with it. They’re going to do whatever they can do to keep him from having the ball in his hands. If they feel that that’s a good strategy, then you may see it.”
Whatever works. Or Beckham can just turn his back and return to the huddle after a play and get ready for the next one. There are a lot of plays in a game. He is a talented individual who has, and can, help the Giants, but he still apparently needs to learn that no individual at this level can win games all by himself. Here is his biggest challenge.
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