Odell Beckham Jr is still one of the most exciting players in the NFL. OBJ made one-handed catches a pretty big deal around the league but he always came short with the New York Giants in the postseason, trying to win a title with his first team in the league.
At some point, the relationship between Odell and the team was unsalvageable and they had no choice but to send him to the Cleveland Browns, where he’s been since 2019. This season, Odell was looking like that player that we used to watch in New York.
After picking up a season-ending torn ACL, Beckham has been in rehab, trying to come back as his best version. He has had a lot of time to reflect on his career and what went wrong for the Giants and how they lost several shots at the title during his stint in the Big Apple.
Odell Beckham makes bold claim about Giants ‘lack of talent’ during last days in New York
The 28-year-old player recently talked with the “All Things Covered” podcast, where he claimed the team wasn’t so interested in putting the right people around 2x Super Bowl champion Eli Manning, which ended up in the team getting dismantled and entering the rebuilding process they’re going through right now.
“I will tell you where I ran into trouble,” Beckham said. “I felt like they never put people around Eli. I know I got a lot of [expletive] when I talked bad on Eli and I never once said a bad thing. If anything, I just speak the truth. The only thing I can look back on and be like ‘Man, I regret saying that’ is saying he’s not the same player even though it’s the truth.
“It bothered me because they never built around him and we were just drafting, but we were just drafting and not building an organization and a franchise. My frustration grew because it was another 5-11 and 5-11 and we were just never good. Even the year we were 11-5, the defense was holding teams to 10 points a game and we were only good because of the defense. My frustrations grew and I felt like they weren’t growing and I had wanted more.”
The Giants made the playoff on several occasions but they always fell short when it mattered the most. Odell was part of that team that shared a picture on a boat ahead of their 2017 game against the Green Bay Packers.
They mightily failed against the Packers in the first round of the 2017 NFL postseason; after that, everything changed for the team. OBJ feels he didn’t play with the right talent and that affected the team and hurt their chances to win a Super Bowl in the 2010s.
Now Beckham is part of another team and even without him on the field, the Browns are headed to the playoffs, fighting for the leadership of the division with the 11-1 Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens.
