A week after Victor Cruz admitted the infamous Miami trip he took with Odell Beckham Jr. and others “definitely wasn’t worth it,” OBJ expressed some regret as well.
Sort of.
Speaking as a guest analyst on ESPN’s Super Bowl Postseason NFL Countdown on Sunday, Beckham opened up a little bit, taking a cue from Cruz.
“Kind of going off what he said, I seen his statement and I talked to him about it,” Beckham said of Cruz (h/t Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News. “And I think what he was saying was all the extra attention and distraction it caused for our team and our organization, I don’t think any of us wanted that, and that’s where the regrets may, may lie.
“But as far as going back on it, you live and you learn,” Beckham continued. “You make decisions and you have to live with the consequences, and you have to be willing to do that. And that was the case. It’s something that I’ll be able to look back on in life, and you just grow from it. And that’s all you can do. You have to take it and move on. I can’t sit back and keep continuing to dwell on it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t really be living life.”
While Beckham Jr. doesn’t come out and say, “it was a mistake,” he clearly understands how perception alters reality now that he’s experienced firsthand how quickly things can spin out of control. Of course, it didn’t help his cause that he was a non-factor in the playoff game at Lambeau Field just days after his trip to Miami.
On that note, Beckham was asked about the hole in the wall that was said to have been left there by his fist after the game during an emotional meltdown. According to OBJ, he didn’t punch the wall, but he doesn’t deny that he had something to do with it, either.
“Honestly, I didn’t sit there — I’ve learned my lesson about that — so I didn’t sit there and punch a wall, man. It was literally, it was a piece of paper, sheet rock, and uh, it just happened.”
There are a lot of ways one could take this statement, but it seems clear he did strike it somehow, even if he didn’t punch it. The New York Giants are said to be investigating the incident — one which head coach Ben McAdoo condemned afterwards — which may have something to do with the way OBJ explained it.
A young man still, at the age of 23, Beckham Jr. wears his emotions on his sleeve. Many of the game’s greats have been the same way, but if he hopes to continue ascending in the NFL he’ll definitely need to learn how to temper his emotions so they don’t hurt his game or his team.