Get off the ledge Giants fans. Odell Beckham Jr. will be fine after a collision with cornerback Janoris Jenkins.
“He got cleated and he has a cut or two,” said head coach Ben McAdoo of an injury the receiver sustained on the practice field. “They’re in there taking a look at it now, so he’s probably going to be sore for a couple of days.”
The explosive wide receiver downplayed the severity of the damage.
“It’s football. It happens,” Beckham Jr. said. “Like I said, you have two guys competing out here, we want to get each other better every day. I go against some of the top corners in the league every single day, which is truly a privilege.”
Beckham Jr. has played in 27 of the last 28 Giants games. He was healthy last season and only missed one game because of a suspension due to his on-field actions against Josh Norman and the Panthers.
He had missed the first four games of his rookie season with a hamstring injury which had also kept him out of training camp and the preseason but still played the final 12 games of the 2014 season.
“Anytime you go down, you don’t want to get injured,” Beckham Jr. said. “Obviously nobody wants to be hurt and I’ve been down that road before, so just make sure that you’re straight, get up, shake it off. Alright it’s still a little, ok, you’ll be alright. It’s football, we go down. I’ve been worse, so I’m alright.”
Any casual observer looking at the wide receiver’s shoes may not have known about the injury. “A friend of mine does the custom shoes and he made some Dexter shoes, which had blood all over them, and then I got a little blood on my leg, so it just kind of matched in, blended in,” Beckham Jr. said.
Linebacker Devon Kennard said that “I just hope he is okay. It is hard to see any if your teammates go down in practice, so you never want to see that.”
For his part, general manager Jerry Reese wasn’t reaching for his inhaler when Beckham Jr. was down. “I’m not one of those hold-your-breath guys, man,” Reese said. “It is football and things like that happen. It is training camp and guys go down all the time. You would have to hold your breath every play almost if you did that, but we are happy that he is okay and he will be back out there once we start to practice again.”
Despite all the highlights, there hasn’t been much winning the last two seasons, and Beckham Jr. wants to help Eli Manning and the Giants get back to the top.
“I just care about winning, period,” Beckham Jr. said. “I hate losing. It doesn’t matter what it is, we’re playing marbles, spades, video games, I just don’t like losing. Obviously [Eli] knows what it takes to win. He’s got two of them and his brother has got two of them, so I’m sure he’s got to bring one home this year to be able to stick his chest out a little bit in that household of legends, really. I think he’s excited about the opportunity, more than excited. Like I said, I’m just looking forward to being a part of it.”