Though it was lost in the hype about Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.’s latest greatest catch of all time, there’s also the small matter that cornerback Janoris Jenkins had what would have been really good coverage against a mortal wideout.
But as many cornerbacks have learned over the years, sometimes even great coverage against Beckham can leave you as a prop in his poster or viral video.
“If you know football, you know coverage, it was great coverage,’’ Jenkins said, via Paul Schwartz of the New York Post. “It was a fantastic catch by Odell. He made the impossible possible.’’
On the recent practice drill which earned millions of eyeballs, Jenkins was step-for-step with Beckham, who reached over him at the last second with one hand (the backhand, at that) to grab the ball.
“I saw him jump early so I was like, ‘He can’t be jumping for the ball,’ ’’ Jenkins said. “But he was coming down, he happened to get his index and thumb on it. . . . I was in great position, I made him make a great play, I can live with that. That’s my teammate. He’s getting better, I’m getting better. You know how it goes. I made him make a play . . . an impossible play. Me and him, we cool, we laugh and we just talk about it. That’s that. Great catch, fantastic catch, helluva throw.
“After he made it I was like, ‘Hell no.’ We joked about it after practice. I was like, ‘What can I do different?’ He said he just made a great catch and I was like, ‘Yeah, basically nothing else I can do.’ ’’
It could have been worse for Jenkins. He could have been like then-Cowboys corner Brandon Carr, who’s memorialized by Beckham’s three-fingered grab in 2014. So for Jenkins, he just has to take comfort in the fact he’s getting work against one of the best, and won’t ever have to face Beckham in a game situation.