Odell Beckham in middle of rally but gets a little dinged up
Odell Beckham Jr. of the Giants reacts on the sideline in the fourth quarter against the Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium on Oct. 1, 2017, in Tampa, Fla. Credit: Getty Images / Joe Robbins
TAMPA, Fla. — Midway through the fourth quarter, with the Giants trailing the Buccaneers 22-17, they needed a big play, the kind that Odell Beckham Jr. has become famous for producing.
Right on cue, Beckham delivered.
On second-and-10 from the Giants’ 25, Eli Manning dropped back and found Beckham open down the middle of the field. The two connected on a 42-yard play at the Bucs’ 33, and the Giants suddenly found life. Just as he had done the week before in Philadelphia, when Beckham scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns to get the Giants back in the game, he sparked the offense once more.
The Giants went on to score a touchdown on Manning’s 2-yard pass to tight end Rhett Ellison, and they took a 23-22 lead.
“We put it on him for a big play, so he went and got that one,” Manning said. “Big play in the game right there, second-and-long, take a shot to hit. It was nice.”
Beckham nearly saved the Giants once again on the two-point conversion, which would have given them a three-point lead with 3:16 to play. Beckham did catch Manning’s pass at the back of the end zone, but he had stepped out of bounds and failed to re-establish himself in bounds, so the play was negated.
It turned out to be a crucial moment, because the Buccaneers simply needed a field goal to win. The Giants couldn’t hold the Bucs, and Jameis Winston led a long drive to set up Nick Folk’s 34-yard field goal that won it with no time left on the clock.
What happened on the conversion?
“There’s really no point in talking about it,” he said. “It’s not like anything is going to change, so we didn’t make the conversion. We came up short. That’s all I can really tell you.”
Beckham ended up with seven catches from 15 targets, for 90 yards. It was a tough day physically for Beckham, who suffered a dislocated index finger on his right hand and also turned his left ankle, which he injured during the preseason and resulted in him missing the regular-season opener.
“I jammed my finger,” he said. “It just popped out. It’s not the first time. It’s just not a comfortable feeling. You’re running off, and your finger is out of play. I’ll be all right.”
The ankle?
“It’s good,” he said. “I just came down in kind of that same motion that injured it is what happened, but came out of it fine. Just at the moment, the pain that you go through right then and there, you’ll overcome it. Just at the time, it was something that scares you for a second.”
The loss left the Giants winless in the first month of the season, the first time they’ve had such a poor getaway since an 0-6 start in 2013.
“I would’ve never thought we would go 0-4, but it is what it is,” he said. “We can’t sit here and cry about it. You just have to keep trying to get better each and every day, get the first win, and see what happens from there.”
With the Giants now having about a 1-percent chance to make the playoffs — only one 0-4 team, the 1992 Chargers, have recovered from 0-4 to get to the postseason — Beckham said there’s still hope.
“I think there’s a 1-percent chance in making it to the NFL, so there’s still a percentage,” he said. “There’s still a chance, 12 games, I guess you have to win all 12. You’ve got to win 11. You have to do what you have to do. The Giants need to put their foot down and we need to start. It’s time to win. There’s no other way to put it, but it’s time to win.”
Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”
More Giants
