Imagine Odell Beckham Jr. in the playoffs
Wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. is excited the Giants have an opportunity and a chance to play in the Super Bowl. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
If you think Odell Beckham Jr. is entertaining in the regular season, wait until you see Odell Beckham Jr., the playoff edition.
The Giants (6-3) still have seven games to play in the regular season, beginning with Sunday’s home contest against the Chicago Bears. While Giants coach Ben McAdoo would prefer not to have the p-word float around the locker room and would like to see his players confine their talk to the task at hand instead of a possible return to the postseason, Beckham has never been one for restraint.
After last Sunday’s win over the Bengals, he said in a television interview that the team is looking forward to Feb. 5 in Houston, which is the date and site of the Super Bowl. After practice Friday, he continued to opine on the postseason, admitting that it is something he frequently thinks about.
“Since I’ve gotten into the league, I’ve envisioned myself getting into the playoffs and what it would be like,” the explosive third-year receiver said. “How the atmosphere would be. That’s why I’m excited that we have an opportunity and a chance. The past two years have been tough.”
The emergence of Beckham as an elite player was one of the few bright spots in the Giants’ back-to-back 6-10 seasons in 2014-15. Beckham — who reached 3,500 yards in his 35th game, the fastest in NFL history — is coming off a big Monday night game against the Bengals in which he caught 10 passes for 97 yards and a touchdown and debuted his Michael Jackson “Thriller” dance.
Fellow receiver Victor Cruz said the playoffs are made for guys like Beckham.
“One hundred percent, I envision more of the same playmaking abilities he’s been doing all regular season long,’’ Cruz said. “Obviously, when that time comes, if we make it to the playoffs, if we handle our business, it will be exciting to watch.”
Beckham knows that if the Giants reach the postseason, he will be expected to take his game and his touchdown celebrations to the next level. He said the celebrations are not something he choreographs in a mirror before games.
“It just kind of happens,” he said. “There’s so many things that run through your mind at that moment. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do. It’s just kind of the heat of the moment.”
Notes & quotes: Beckham apparently can dodge pesky questions as well as pesky defenders. At the end of his group interview Friday, Beckham was asked about a TMZ report that he had lost a diamond ring when he was at a Bronx strip club called Sin City Cabaret along with Broncos linebacker Von Miller on Thursday night. “I don’t know anything about that,” Beckham said. When he was asked if he had been at the club, he grew irritated and said “Are we at the New York Giants’ facility at work? That’s what we’re talking about.” . . . Cruz (ankle) was thrilled to be cleared to play Sunday after missing Monday night’s game. Said Cruz: “I only saw I was cleared about 400 times on my Twitter today. But it’s good. I’m feeling good again.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
