Giants need Beckum to step up his game

About two-thirds of the way through practice Wednesday, offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride appeared to have had enough of Travis Beckum.

"Just stay out," Gilbride said to the third-year tight end who wasn't even supposed to be on the field with that personnel group and then ran the wrong pattern. Gilbride waved his hands disgustedly as if he was tearing every Beckum page from the playbook.

"I messed up a play and him being the offensive coordinator, it's his job to be upset about it," Beckum said. "It was just a miscommunication. I think that if you didn't know what was going on, you kind of got the wrong perception of it."

No. it's clear that Gilbride and the Giants are losing patience with Beckum. Now in his third year, he has yet to develop into the mismatch-inducing slot receiver they thought they were drafting in the third round. While some of that falls at the feet of the staff -- they've never quite figured out how to use Beckum -- a lot is on Beckum.

Now the Giants are counting on him to pick up some of the receiving slack that Steve Smith and Kevin Boss have left with their free-agency departures. Earlier this week, general manager Jerry Reese said that he thinks Beckum can have the same kind of productivity -- 35 receptions -- that Boss had.

"I think he's right," Beckum said. "If I take care of my business and take care of my p's and q's, I don't know why I shouldn't be able to do that, if not better."

One of the reasons might be his health, which has always seemed to be an issue for him. Beckum missed the first preseason game with a sore hamstring, a muscle that has given him trouble throughout his career. It was just another case, Tom Coughlin said, of Beckum making strides on the practice field only to come up limping from the big steps forward.

"He's got to stay out there," Coughlin said. "When he stays out there, he becomes more confident, he does a lot more things with consistency . . . The way he was progressing was a positive thing and those couple of days without practice set him back a little bit and hopefully, he's starting to get that back."

Coughlin said he has seen flashes of Beckum's ability.

"You see him maneuver and run and catch the ball in traffic and that type of thing," he said. "He even made some really hard catches there right before he missed a couple of days. You just need to see more of it. You need to know that he's out there and he's going to practice and he's going to get to work. He can experience a lot of these things on the practice field."

Beckum said he knows he has the ability to do the things that premier tight ends in the league such as Kellen Winslow, Jason Witten and Chris Cooley can do. What he lacks that they have, he said, is experience. After this year, if all goes well, that shouldn't be a problem any more. The Giants may not have a choice about putting Beckum on the field more than he has been in the past two years combined.

"I think he expects more out of me," Beckum said if Eli Manning. "Especially with the loss of Kevin and Steve, I think he knows that there's going to need to be someone else who needs to step up. Hopefully, he's seen that I can do that and he can rely on me. I think that's the biggest thing with Eli is you have to earn his trust. I'm continuing to do that and trying to get better every day."

As for Gilbride's trust, well, that's a work in progress. Beckum did return to the field later in practice Wednesday at the urging of tight ends coach Mike Pope. Gilbride at first seemed miffed by that, but instead he just watched Beckum closely. Beckum wound up making two nice catches in the two-minute drill.

"I think that they're harder on me but that's good," Beckum said of the coaches' expectations this season. "I want them to be hard on me. I try not to take it personally. But that's their job as a coach. I'd rather have me go run the wrong route and have them yell at me as opposed to go out there and run the wrong route and they just ignore it."

The Giants may be looking for the third option out of Beckum at this point. Just run the right route and everyone will be happy.