![OBJ becomes highest paid wideout. - [Erik Drost / Wikimedia Commons]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2018/8/29/660x290/b_502x220x82/obj-becomes-highest-paid-wideout-photo-courtesy-of-wikimedia-commons_2084229.jpg "OBJ becomes highest paid wideout. - [Erik Drost / Wikimedia Commons]")
The New York Giants and Odell Beckham Jr’s camp agreed on a five-year, $95 million contract extension on Monday (August 27), of which $65 million was guaranteed money. There was speculation, months back, that the Giants were entertaining trade suitors for Beckham rather than pay him the big bucks. After all, OBJ is a more animated personality than the Giants organization typically deals with, and he had embarrassed management more than once on national TV over the last couple of years.
OBJ was worthy of naysayers
With a run-in with a kicking net in Washington, launching himself headfirst at Carolina Panther's DB Josh Norman, and emulating a peeing dog in an end zone dance in Philly, some fans, and Giants management, felt Beckham was wearing his welcome thin.
The last episode was a YouTube video, which showed OBJ, half-clad in a Paris hotel room, with a female counterpart and various partying materials laid out on a table.
The Giants convince Odell Beckham Jr. to do it their way
However, almost from the beginning of 2018, it seemed OBJ had toned down his off-the-field attention garnering activities. It appears that in some conversations with the Mara family, the controlling management family of the New York Giants, and Beckham’s people, an agreement was reached. It must have been discussed that the Giants certainly wanted OBJ to stay in New York and that they certainly wanted to pay the player his full market value. At the same time, it has been obvious by his on-the-field and off-the-field activities, since OTAs and mini-camps this spring, that it must also have been made clear that the Giants would not stand for being embarrassed by their superstar.
OBJ the model employee
In any case, Odell has been the model training camp participant, albeit mugging a bit much with the one-handed catches for my taste. The absence of off-the-field excitement has been noticeable. However, one hopes that the Giants aren’t being played the fool here; for only hours following signing his career contract of nearly $100mm, OBJ appeared in a selfie YouTube video produced by fellow NY Giant Sterling Sheppard, dancing and singing, to the rock anthem “Money Money Money.”
I understand that I may be old school.
However, I have also been a follower of the Mara family and their management style for a few decades. It hasn’t always been good times, as Giants fan's who remember the Clevlandesque ticket burning activities of the 70s will tell you. But management has always successfully cultivated a conservative atmosphere, which trickled down to the locker room and the field.
The Giants have never suffered attention-getting players well. And, the proof is in the pudding. For instance, when 2007 Super Bowl winning receiver Plaxico Buress, embarrassed the Giants and himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a New York nightclub, he was graciously shown the door. Let’s just say, OBJ, that there were more understated things a player could have done following the signing of a stupid money contract, with a well respected and austere organization, than appearing in a YouTube video, singing, and dancing while wearing a locker room towel to the mantra of money.
