As one New York NFL team realizes that it has a potential problem at receiver, a New York receiver who has been deemed a problem on three prior NFL teams has some free advice.
Tread lightly.
“Those guys over there need to be really careful,” Jets receiver Brandon Marshall said regarding the Giants and receiver Odell Beckham Jr., via Daniel Popper of the New York Daily News. “They don’t need to be speaking out on their teammate. They need to keep that in-house, because they can lose him. They need to rally behind him and give him the support he needs and handle that stuff in-house, whether good or bad. Because whether they like it or not, he’s the best player on that team.”
In the past week, both coach Ben McAdoo and quarterback Eli Manning have publicly expressed concerns regarding the manner in which Beckham deals with adversity.
“He’s the type of guy that he can play with anger; he can play with rage,” Marshall said. “Like, that’s not a distraction for him. He doesn’t need a sports psychologist for that, because he’s still going to make that magnificent one-hand catch. The problem is, it may be a distraction to his teammates. Guys don’t [want to] answer the same question every single week. But as far as him personally needing help? He doesn’t need help. He’s still going to produce and be the beast that he is. But when your teammates have to answer that question over and over again, that’s when it becomes a problem.
“I think that he can channel it a bit better. But there’s a thin line, like, he has to be himself. Monday night, he was not himself. That’s not good for them. That’s not good for them -- coach coming out saying, ‘Oh, this, he needs to do’ -- nah, that’s the wrong way. You’re playing with fire there.”
It’s easy to identify the problem, and to acknowledge that it’s unwise to chastise a clearly temperamental player publicly. At this point, how should the Giants solve it? Marshall offered no specific answer.
Maybe at this point the solution is to do what the Broncos, Dolphins, and Bears have each done with Marshall: Trade Beckham to another team.