Odell Bechkham Jr Needs To Wake Up!

   With the 12th pick in the 2014 Draft, the New York Giants select Odell Beckham Jr from LSU. Giants fans were excited about this pick, but they didn't know how ultra-talented this kid was. Not even in their wildest dream, they saw this young kid to take over the city of New York the way he did. Obviously he was a star in college during his time with LSU, but we all know, being a star in college doesn't guarantee a player to be a star in professional football. Odell was expected to be another weapon for Eli Manning and to be the number two receiver, behind Victor Cruz. Then before midway into the 2014 season, Victor Cruz suffered a season ending injury at Philadelphia in a game against the Eagles. Suddenly, the offense of the New York Giants depended heavily on Odell. Guess what he was more than ready for the challenge. He had an incredible season in his first year in the league in terms of numbers and impact. He caught attention of every single football fan when he made the greatest catch of all time against the Dallas Cowboys on a primetime Sunday night game. In 2014, everyone talked about Odell's game, such as his receiving skills, route running, snatching the ball ability in the air from the defender, and his excellent speed in the open field. Then in two years, topics related to Odell Beckham Jr changed. The football world for the last two years has been talked about if Odell could keep his emotions in check and not be a distraction to his teammates. Well it doesn't matter if it is a good question or not, but it is a question indeed. Odell is an ultra talented player but he doesn't always use his talents wisely. You could argue that he doesn't use it wisely majority of the time. He needs to change his approach to the game. He needs to clean up his act. Needs to understand the consequences of his actions and how him being selfish could affect his reputation. There is evidence, that his team doesn't suffer much when he misses games. Isn't that shocking? Odell Beckham Jr you really need to wake up or otherwise you will be worst than Chad Johnson (Ochocinco).

   What has happened to Odell since midway of 2015 season? Bright lights got the best of him. Instead of making great plays for himself and the team to win games, he started focusing on making plays to get himself more camera time. Let's compare his 2014 and 2015 seasons with 2016 and first five weeks of 2017 season. In 2014 Beckham played only twelve games yet, he still caught ninety one balls for 1300 plus receiving yards and twelve touchdowns. Those numbers don't sound rookie-kind. Like how in the world a rookie caught over nintey plus balls in just twelve games against tougher competition than what he faced in college? By the way he wasn't just a rookie to have 1300 plus receiving yards in a season with only twelve games played, he is the only player in NFL history to have such an accomplisment. That's just staggering. It wasn't that he was going up against second or third string corners. He went up against top notch corners and some times double and triple coverages. The catch that he had against the Dallas Cowboys and which made him the most popular player in the league, came after he outran a corner and a safety, and on that play he was covered well by the corner. In that same season, he set a number of records as a rookie and as a player. He set the record for most games with ten plus catches in a season as a rookie with four of them. Odell has most games as a rookie in which he recorded ten plus receptions, one hundred plus receiving yards and at least a touchdown with four of them. In that same season, Beckham had sixteen plays for over twenty yards and six plays for over forty yards. Then in 2015, in his sophomore season, Odell amped up his production against defenses who were more prepared for him. He caught 96 passes for over 1400 receiving yards and thirteen touchdowns. For the year, he had nineteen plays over twenty yards and eight plays over forty yards. His first two years were simply amazing as he put on a show on a weekly basis. In those two years he made some plays that were just breath-taking and made viewers watch them again and again on Youtube.

  

So how did he do in 2016? He had a down year or something? Well if you look at it statwise, he actually had similar production as the first two years. Odell finished the year with 101 receptions, career high (so far), for over 1300 receiving yards and ten touchdowns. He did start slow, but ended the season strong. Yes they also made it to the playoffs that year, but something wasn't right about him. He caused a lot of problems in the sidelines. Fought with a kicking net, made out with the kicking net, yelled at his coaches, pointed fingers, tried to tear apart his jersey, committed many unsportsmanlike penalties, and a lot of other stupid stuff. In 2014 and until week fifteen of 2015, he was a modest player. Wasn't too loud or came across as a selfish player. Then in week fifteen matchup against the 14-0 Carolina Panthers, OBJ went up against Josh Norman. Giants have a history of beating undefeated teams in big matchups. Apparently before the game started, some panther players threaten to hurt Beckham. One of the players pointed a baseball at Beckham's direction. Then the game started. On the first drive of the game, Beckham got loose from Josh Norman and was running in the open field. Eli threw a perfect pass into the palms of Beckham and he dropped it straight. He dropped the easiest catch anyone ever could. Then Norman said something to annoy Beckham. Almost every play after that, Beckham and Norman got into some sort of fight. First they got into a verbal arguement and then they got physical. They threw punches at each other. However, at times Beckham didn't have any business of getting physical with Norman. On one play, Josh Norman was trying to look for the ball on the ground after the Giants running back was tackled to the ground by a panther defender. While Norman was still searching for the ball, Beckham from nowhere came to hit Norman with his body in full speed. Beckham finished the game with six catches for 76 yards and a touchdown, but he had two big drops in the game. If he had ignored Norman at the beginning, the outcome of the game could have been very different. But of course, Beckham knew everyone was super excited for the matchup between him and Norman. Josh Norman was having a career year and was one of the best corners in the league that year. Bechkam wanted to prove to the world that no corner could slow him down, so he tried to do extra and thought too much while going up against Josh Norman. The game did generate a lot of attention but it also started OBJ's path to destruction.

   Josh Norman after the game said that he had taken the mask of Beckham's face and finally got to reveal his true self to the world. He wasn't wrong. In 2016, as I mentioned earlier, Beckham got to do a lot of silly stuff. Let's start with his rematch against Josh Norman in week 3 game against the Washington Redskins at MetLife Stadium. Wait, before we begin, let's talk about how Josh Norman got to Washington Redskins in 2016. Well he was let go by the Carolina Panthers in the 2016 offseason after the team and his side failed to come to an agreement with a long-term contract. So what did Josh Norman do the very next day? He signed with the Washington Redskins so then he can play for a team which plays in Beckham's divison. Norman wanted to bug Beckham more by facing him twice a year and that's why he signed with the Redskins in a snap. OBJ knew why Norman signed with the Redskins as he said... "He just wants to stay relevant, that's why he came to the division." So in their week 3 matchup in 2016, they didn't threw too many punches at one another, but they still fought and did some unusual things while going toe to toe. On the play in which Giants scored the game's first touchdown, it was a hand-off to the running back. Odell on the play, ran his route and as soon as he turned around, Norman picked him up on his lap. Norman didn't need to do that at all but of course he wanted to annoy Beckham. For the most of the game, Beckham with his speed and moves, got the best of Norman. There were two plays he made in the game which caught everyone's attention. First an incredible one handed catch before going out of bounds for a first down early in the fourth quarter. Then on the next play he caught a short pass, brought Josh Norman down with a stiff arm, and made other defenders miss just before he got the first down to move the chains. After doing all the right things on the field with back to back good plays, Beckham lost his cool when Eli decided to throw the ball to his tight end, Will Tye, and failed to come up with a score. OBJ went to the sidelines and hit the kicking net with frustration. Kicking net, ended up hitting him back. He came off very selfish. Giants obviously didn't lose the game because of him, as he was responsible for getting them into a position to score, but him showing frustration on the sidelines and yelling to himself, made it clear that he wanted Manning to force the ball at his direction.

  
Later in the season against the Baltimore Ravens, OBJ and the Giants were competing really hard to get a win. In the final few minutes of the game it was OBJ who got loose for a go-ahead touchdown and almost sealed the victory for the giants. I say almost, because two to three seconds after he scored, he took off his helmet and ran the other side of the field. That drew a penalty and gave Ravens a short field to work with in the final few minutes of the game. Had the Ravens scored, all the fans and viewers would have criticized Beckham for the lost and rightly so. Eli and coach Ben McAdoo did say that Odell should know better about the circumstances late in games. A penalty like that can't be tolerated. As the season went on, OBJ said a lot of silly stuff and acted like a drama queen. There was a game in which he proposed to the kicking net and then in the press conference talked about it. I mean come on, shouldn't he be talking about the game and his play rather than him proposing a kicking net? Just about the season was coming to an end, OBJ talked about Eli Manning with the reporters. He said that he knew Eli had been to two super bowls and won them, and now he wants Eli to take him there so then he knows how it feels like to win a super bowl. Why say all this? Why should Eli have to take you to the super bowl? Shouldn't it be the team going there together? Or you just want the ring for yourself OBJ? After all the stupidity and distraction from OBJ, New York Giants made it to the post-season for the first time in five years. Only to lose in the first round. Six days before the game, OBJ went on a boat trip in Florida with his fellow wide receivers. Just six days before Odell's very first playoff game, he went on a boat trip. Just think about it! I know it was his day off, he could have done whatever he desired but, if you want to be great and want to get to the super bowl, with your quarterback, shouldn't you be home resting your body after a brutal season? Or study your opponent as much as you can, so you can play well against them? No he wanted to take off his shirt, get on a boat (in Florida) and pose for pictures. Great! Just before the playoff game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau, where it was freezing, Beckham and some of his buddies decided to warm-up shirtless. OBJ was showing that the cold wasn't bothering him. Oh really? Guess what he dropped a pass on a third down in the first drive of the game. Rough start, he could shake it off. He then dropped another pass in the first half. Then in the second half he dropped his third pass of the game and his second on a third down. OBJ finished the game with four catches for only 28 yards. He probably didn't get to relax enough on the boat.

   Yes many players have had rough playoff debuts but, they always get to learn something from such experiences. One would think Odell Beckham Jr learned a valuable lesson from his rough day at Lambeau in his playoff debut, but no, he didn't change much. On July 24th, 2017, during the offseason, OBJ on the show uninterrupted said, that he's the elephant in the room, and just doesn't want to be the highest paid receiver in the league, he wants to be the highest paid player period. After a horrible end to 2016 season OBJ came in front of a camera and started talking about his financial goals. Wow. I guess for OBJ, it is all about OBJ! For the 2017 season, he only got to play four weeks, as his season was cut short after he suffered an ankle injury in a loss to the LA Chargers in week 5. Well before the injury, he didn't do so well in the games he played. His production was limited, as he didn't have a single game with hundred receiving yards and his team started off with five straight losses to open the season. Giants won their first game of the year in week 6, just a week after they lost OBJ for the year. The only good game Odell had this year, was the game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Philly, where he caught two touchdowns in the game. After he scored his and Giants first touchdown of the game, he celebrated it by acting like a dog peeing in the endzone. When was the last time we saw a professional athlete act like a dog peeing? That act definitely drew a flag, but did Odell care? Of course not! OBJ didn't apologize for such a disgusting act after the game. He doesn't sound like a team player. He doesn't act like a team player. Even though I believe he is very important to Giants success in the future and he is their only legit weapon on offense, the team doesn't suffer much when he misses games. Giants win percentage with him is 43.8 percent and without him it is 42.9 percent. Giants offesne with him get to score 22.5 points per game. Without him, they get to score 20.9 points per game. Eli Manning's completion percentage in games is 62.8 percent with OBJ on the field. Interestingly, Eli's completion percentage goes up to 66.5 percent when OBJ is not on the field with him. Meaning Eli forces more passes when Beckham is on the field. Also, OBJ not being on the field doesn't really affect Eli's passer rating. So Odell needs to wake up before he gets shipped out of New York.

  

   The Giants family can't tolerate his antics forever as they are a very classy organization. New York Giants players, coaches, and fans all have a lot of faith and respect in their franchise. Plus OBJ should be thankful that he is playing for such an incredible organzation. Kids dream of playing for New York Giants, New York Yankees or New York Knicks. Speaking of Yankees and the Knicks, Odell should learn a thing or two from Aaron Judge and Kristaps Porzingis, as both of them are young sensational stars of their teams. Both of them don't talk much to media and do anything distractive. They come to work and give extraordniary performances on a nightly basis. Fans love both Judge and Porzingis. If OBJ doesn't figure things out sonn, he might lose his spot as New York's biggest superstar to either Judge or Porzingis. In fact, some people already believe that Aaron Judge is the biggest superstar of New York after his tremendous rookie season with the Yankees this past year. Odell Beckham Jr needs to ignore the noise, stay away from partying and being a celebrity, and focus on his game. Remember it was the catch for a touchdown that made OBJ famous. He didn't become famous by throwing punches on corners or talking about his financial goals. Don't miss out on this opportunity OBJ. Make the best of your opportunities next year and put your name back on top. Wake up OBJ!