For the first 44 minutes of Sunday night's New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys game, Odell Beckham, Jr. was having a crummy game. Late in the first quarter, he dropped what looked like a sure touchdown; a couple plays later, an Eli Manning fumble left the Giants without points on that drive. Midway through the third, a third-down pass hit Beckham squarely in the hands and bounced away. The Cowboys sent double coverage Beckham's way most of the evening, and when they didn't, the superstar wideout seemed willing to help them out himself.Then, with just over a minute left in the third quarter, Beckham ran a slant. Manning hit him in stride six or so yards down the field, and Beckham took it 55 more for a touchdown. It was the Giants' only trip to the end zone the whole night, and it decided the game; the 10-7 score held.
Beckham's career-catapulting one-handed touchdown catch came two seasons ago against these same Cowboys, but Sunday night's catch-and-run summed up his livewire brilliance just as well, in its own way. He ran an unremarkable routine route, one designed to produce a meager gain, and simply zoomed away from cornerback Brandon Carr and the rest of the Dallas defense. There is something lacking in that explanation—no timed jukes or brilliant angles—unless you watched the play. Carr is a very fast man whose job consists in large part of catching people trying to run away from him, but Beckham exists in a different register. He is faster, almost always, in a league where such a plain distinction rarely exists. "It was a real race," Beckham said after the game, lying.But the play, or rather its positioning in the game, also stood in for the frustrations of player and team alike this season. It has been a trying year for Beckham, who has feuded with officials, the league office, and kicking nets all over the country. Defenses aware of his perceived short fuse and the Giants' relative lack of other offensive options have tilted heavily, and physically, in his direction, and the attention has turned the schedule into a slog. In October, Beckham said he wasn't "having fun anymore," and all year, the New York offense has produced fewer points than expected. If Beckham had held on to a couple more passes, Sunday's win could have been an even more hopeful one. Instead, it was a 60-minute struggle with a ten-second thrill.Still, what a ten seconds. Fans wanting Beckham to match the likes of Antonio Bryant as a weekly fulcrum have been disappointed in 2016, but he still has plenty to give those with humbler requests, who just want their eyes to pop out of their head every now and again. Lots of NFL players do their jobs well and consistently. Only a few, in the middle of a rough night in a rough season, can make the job look for a moment like the easiest thing in the world.
Advertisement