Odell Beckham Jr. is one of the best wide receivers in the entire NFL. That makes him one of the best Fantasy Football players as well. Unfortunately, his owners were in a bind this week. The receiver had been dealing with an ankle injury that has left him questionable throughout the week. The start time of his game during opening week also compounded the issue for fantasy owners. By the time news of his playing status broke on Sunday night, there was nothing owners could do to react but cross their fingers and hope for the best.

Beckham Jr. ruled out

Throughout the week, it seemed as if it would be a game time decision for the New York Giants receiver. He suffered the ankle injury back on August 21 in a preseason game against the Cleveland Browns. The injury looked scary at the time but simply left him week-to-week. Nevertheless, Beckham Jr.'s status for the opener against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night was always in doubt.

Then, the news fantasy owners had been fearing all week came to fruition.

The mention of Cuba in that tweet related to an inside joke for the reporter about the fantasy stud's game status. But the mention of Beckham Jr.

was much more pertinent to many. The Giants are obviously the ones most hurt by his absence. Without him, the team loses their most explosive, game-changing player. Brandon Marshall was forced to step up in his first game with the team and second-year receiver Roger Lewis received a bigger burden, as did the running game.

Fantasy football implications

Fantasy football owners arguably had it worse, though. In most leagues, Beckham Jr. would have been a first-round pick in drafts. That means owners are losing their most important and best player on the very first weekend. That's a massive problem, but they can always just substitute in a different receiver or flex player, right?

Wrong. That's the issue of playing a Sunday night game. There's no way to replace the player on the fly because almost all of the other players on a team have already played in their game for the week, or have an unexpected bye brought on by a hurricane. There's obviously no way owners are dropping Beckham Jr. for the sake of one game. Fantasy football owners could be spared by the fact that there are two Monday night games this week. But for the most part, Odell Beckham Jr. - through no fault of his own - directly impacted the games of millions of people around the world this week.
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