Odell Beckham Jr. has decided to show new coach Shurmur and NY Giants management that he is ready to turn over a new leaf by hanging out and training with Johnny Manziel! Where on the list of poor career choices do you think this move belongs? After spending two-thirds of the season out with a bad ankle that needed surgery, OBJ’s lasting impression in 2017 was of him mocking a dog peeing in the Philadelphia end zone in a game in Philly, that the Giants eventually lost to the Super Bowl-bound Eagles, on a 61-yard field goal.
OBJ, are you getting good advice?
After headlines emphasizing the talk that management had with Beckham following the above incident and that new head coach Pat Shurmur is said to have scheduled with the somewhat confused prima-donna; one can only imagine that he is getting either bad advice or no advice at all. Beckham is hoping to become the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL at the end of the year. An awful lot of things are going to have to fall in to place in order for that to happen. First of all, one could make the case that that doesn’t happen if the Giants don’t make the playoffs. Secondly, OBJ is going to have to continue his exceptional play, and remain relatively healthy. Thirdly, Eli Manning is going to have to get him the ball, often.
And, last but not least, his antics on the field and sidelines are going to have to cease.
'Show me the money'
If I were looking to have all those things happen, following my recovery from ankle surgery, while training and staying ‘spanking clean’ this off-season, I would find the millennial version of ‘John Glenn’ to workout with, not the most recent ‘Biggest Loser” in the NFL, Johnny Manziel.
Manziel who was a magnet for well-documented problems on and off the field in Cleveland before being cut appears to be getting another chance in the Canadian Football League. However, In New York, if I am trying to decide whether to reward my pass-catching celebrity at the apex of league pay for his position I am definitely taking character issues into account.
According to NJ.com, OBJ was quoted as saying when seen working out with Manziel last year, that he was simply "taking the time to get proper training and really grow and mature and learn new things in life."
Well, Mr. Beckham, I hope that the ‘new things in life,’ don’t refer to lessons taught by your buddy Manziel, or you may find out the alternative meaning of N-F-L. The NFL, indeed professional sports, is littered with careers that might have been if only this, that or the other thing, had or had not occurred.
