While the now infamous Miami trip for Odell Beckham Jr. and some of his Giants teammates the week before their Wild Card meeting with Green Bay was not the reason why they lost the game, it certainly didn’t help. So Beckham, while making an appearance on ESPN’s “Postseason NFL Countdown” admitted the trip probably wasn’t worth the hoopla.
“Kind of going off what (Victor Cruz) said, and I saw his statement and I talked to him about it,” Beckham said to Suzy Kolber. “I think what he was saying was all the extra attention and distraction it caused for our team and our organization, I don’t think any of us wanted that. That’s where the regrets may lie.”
“But as far as going back on it, you live and you learn. You make decisions and you have to live with the consequences. You have to be willing to do that. And that was the case. It’s something that I’ll be able to look back on in life and you just grow from it and that’s all you can do.”
“You have to take it and move on. You can’t sit back and keep continuing to dwell on it, otherwise I won’t really be living life.”
Beckham also admitted he was the one who punched a hole through a wall near the Giants locker room out of frustration after the loss.
“Honestly, I’ve learned my lesson about that,” he said. “I didn’t sit there and punch a wall, man. It was literally a piece of paper, Sheetrock. It just happened.”
To help lighten the situation, Rex Ryan, who was a guest analyst for ESPN for a day, told Beckham if he ever got back into coaching, he’d be welcome on his team.
“You know what’s great, though, the entire league, what you and everybody else have in common, you’re not perfect. That’s just the way it is. But you can come play for me anytime. I have to get a job first.”
I should think every coach in the NFL would love to have Odell Beckham on their team, warts and all. But as the boat “controversy” becomes a distant memory, Beckham at least wants to help put the story away for good, and his comments help do that.
[Newsday]
