Odell Beckham’s visit to Dallas was followed by reports the Cowboys have concerns the receiver’s ACL recovery has not progressed enough to ensure he would play before mid-January. Beckham, though, told Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons he expects to play in five weeks.
The regular season ends Jan. 8, which is a little over five weeks, with the postseason beginning the following week.
“He told me five weeks. Five weeks,” Parsons said, via David Moore of the Dallas Morning News. “No trainer, no doctor, no anybody can tell a player who he feels. It’s your body. That’s for anything. Any part of your body [that’s] hurt. No one can tell you how your body is going to feel except for you. If that’s what he says, I always believe it. If they say no, my body hurts, I can’t go. You have to respect that.”
The Cowboys have recruited Beckham like no other team. Players publicly have campaigned for him, and Dallas Mavericks fans showed him the love Monday night by chanting his name with Beckham sitting courtside alongside Parsons and Trevon Diggs.
“Obviously, he knew we wanted him,” Parsons said. “We just wanted to make him feel at home. There’s only so much you can say to a guy that he doesn’t know. This ain’t college. I’m not going to feed him, ‘You’re going to get the best education.’ I’m pretty sure he knows who he’s got here. It’s more we wanted to make him feel at home. The Dallas fans made him do that.”
Parsons said he got the impression that Beckham wants to play in Dallas after the free agent tour first took Beckham to the Giants and Bills. But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones curbed the enthusiasm for Beckham in Dallas, allowing that he’s “not confident at all” with signing Beckham without seeing him workout.