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Odell Beckham Jr. Trying To Enjoy New Team Amidst Backlash

Odell Beckham Jr. makes acrobatic catches on the football field and way too much noise off it.

Who am I speaking for? Well, me. But I suspect many more who enjoy the NFL and the personalities in it, but grow tired of Italian opera (me, me, me, me).

Beckham made himself a nuisance with the New York Giants, despite his brilliant contributions on the field. So the Giants traded him to the Cleveland Browns. Considering where the Browns seem to be going and where the Giants have been, this is not the worst thing in the world.

Can Beckham enjoy the moment? Apparently not without ruining it for everyone else.

In a featured story in GQ, Beckham whines about being “disrespected” by the Giants because they traded him. He needs to remember the respect they showed him the year before when they signed him to a five-year contract extension worth $90 million. They’ve paid nearly half of the guaranteed money and got less than a full season out of him in 2019.

Another glass of whine? Beckham tells GQ he thought about retiring when he was 24 – he’ll be 27 in November – because football crushed his individuality. “It hurt me to my soul,” he said. Yeah, this is the guy the Giants had to reprimand for a touchdown celebration where he pretended to urinate on the field. Love that individuality and good taste.

He also doesn’t like that when he fails to express emotion after a loss, “It’s like you don’t care enough.” But when he’s angry after a loss, he doesn’t like being called emotional and having fans say “that I’m immature.” There are, of course, grown-up ways of doing both. That’s life in the public arena.

You can read more in GQ. Or you can choose not to. You might instead try Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself,” which opens with “I Celebrate myself, and sing myself.” Whitman probably didn’t pretend to urinate on his desk after penning those words.

I’ll watch Beckham play. That’s a treat. I beg him for the silent treatment. Please.

 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman