Giants’ Beckham: It gets frustrating when teammates joke with you
As the winner of the “Madden NFL 16” cover vote, Odell Beckham Jr. might be on edge about possibly being the next victim of the notorious “Madden Curse.”
Whatever the reason, the New York Giants star receiver was upset with his teammates and coaches for giving him grief about missing the team’s recent minicamp with a sore hamstring.
“For me, this is what I love doing, and this is what I feel like my purpose was to do,” Beckham told ESPN.com. “So it takes a lot of strength for me to be able to come here every day and not practice, have to hear the little remarks, the little jokes, this and that.”
Beckham sat out training camp last year and missed the first four games of his rookie season for the Giants with another hamstring issue before becoming a star, a status he said has led to being the butt of jokes made by just about “everybody” on the team.
“Because of the hamstring last year and then the fame, it’s like, ‘Oh, you’re too big-time now,’ all that,” Beckham said. “So, I mean, I just hear it and you want to blow it off, but after a while it gets old, and it kind of bothers you.”
Channeling his inner Sgt. Hulka, New York quarterback Eli Manning told WFAN’s “Boomer and Carton” radio show that Beckham needs to lighten up.
“You’re not practicing, people are gonna get on you a little bit,” Manning said. “If you’re not practicing, you’ve got to sit there and take it.
“It’s fun-loving. People might say, ‘How’s your fingernail?’ ”
Giants coach Tom Coughlin agreed, saying his young wideout needs to “Worry about things you can control and not about those you can’t.”
On Wednesday, Beckham backtracked, telling the New York Post he’s not thin-skinned and his comments were misconstrued.
“I have no problem with anybody on the team or inside or anything,” he said. “It was more of, you know, I feel like you can’t take someone’s words and you can’t really tell the tone they’re saying.
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, it gets a bit frustrating when teammates joke with you,’ and it gets written that he’s frustrated with teammates and it’s like it’s not how it sounds. It’s weird sometimes.”
Lighten up, Francis.
