Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham avoided any major sideline blowups during Sunday’s loss to the Steelers, but there were plenty of moments when Beckham could be seen gesturing toward officials in hopes of getting a call in his direction.
Beckham didn’t get the flags he was looking for from referee Terry McAulay’s crew, leading him to say after the game that the group shouldn’t work any more games involving the Giants. McAulay was the ref for Beckham’s battle with Josh Norman last year and other members of the crew worked the game against the Redskins earlier this season that started with a warning for both players.
“It’s us against the world, in a sense,” Beckham said, via ESPN.com. “You can’t sit there and rely on refs, obviously. Obviously, that is not the case; you can’t sit there and rely on them, if anybody watched the game [on Sunday]. It’s not that I’m sitting here saying the refs are the reason we lost the game, but there is plenty of calls in the game and anybody can go watch the film. Anybody. Anybody can see exactly what is going on.”
Beckham took particular issue with an offensive pass interference call in the first quarter that backed the Giants up against their end zone. Beckham said it was a “horrible call” and that the official who threw the flag told Beckham to get out of his face when Beckham went for an explanation.
Left tackle Ereck Flowers was called for holding in the end zone a couple of plays later to give Pittsburgh their first points of the night and things wouldn’t get much better for the Giants in a 24-14 loss. One of the few places where they did fare better than Pittsburgh was on penalties. The Giants were penalized just four times overall while the Steelers were flagged 12 times for 115 yards before the day was through.