ODELL BECKHAM JR.
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and be videotaped and chugging beer or what-
ever. Going crazy. And it’s like, “Oh, man, look
at how much fun he’s having. Look at how he’s
having a blast! This is amazing.”
To use a name: Do you think you’ve done
anything more inappropriate than, say,
Rob Gronkowski?
Probably not. It’s the same thing. It’s like,
Why can’t I have fun? People tell me I’m sup-
posed to be a role model. Well, what are they
supposed to be? We’re human beings at the
end of the day. We earned the right to play in
the NFL, but we also earned a life of our own.
“I just had a talk with my uncle, and he agreed
that my privacy is about the only thing I need
back.”* You never hear about my personal life.
You never hear about the woman I’m dating or
anything like that. And you won’t. I don’t need
to give you that. You want to talk about my
job, football? We can talk about that. But this
is my personal life. There’s two separate lines.
So I always try to keep that.
Who do you think is a better dancer:
you or Baker Mayfield?
Baker can dance! He’s going to have to come
see me, though! I try to encourage people to be
themselves. I try to encourage Jarvis to come
out of his shell. Be comfortable being uncom-
fortable. Like, just live. Life is so precious and
so short. That’s really how I think.
Are you worried about the OBJ brand
shrinking by playing in a smaller market
like Cleveland?
I forever will have love for the New York fans.
They gave me my first home. But there’s this
sense of entitlement—like I was made there.
And in my head, that was the first place I had
the opportunity to show the world what God
had set out for me to do. It didn’t matter where
I was at. Now, did it help that it was Sunday
Night Football for the New York Giants versus
the Dallas Cowboys? One thousand percent.
But The Catch happened around the entire
world. I feel like it wouldn’t matter where
I was at—once you got hooked onto who I
was and what I was doing. And who knows?
If I was in another place, you don’t know if the
numbers would’ve been more or less.
Did you like the added pressure that
comes from playing for a New York team?
I loved it. Not for attention purposes. I just
loved New Yorkers. They’re such a unique
group of people. Good or bad. It’s both sides.
But God made me. You know what I mean?
God made me. That’s just where he gave me
my first opportunity to show where I was at. It
was like lightning struck for me. I remember
looking on Instagram after the game [with The
Catch] and my followers went up, like, 100K.
I was like, This is crazy. And then the next
week, going into practice, 200K. It was going at
a rate that I was like: If you were to ask me five
years ago if I would’ve had 13 million followers
on Instagram, I would’ve told you, “Nah—no
way I would have 13 million followers.”Do you think you’ll ever make a catch
better than that one?
Yeah. That was just one on that stage. And then
you got the haters that are like, “Yeah, they still
lost that game.” That has nothing to do with
what we’re talking about. I go back and look
at my stats and how people talk about me, and
it’s like, “Oh, but you never won anything,” and
you do this and that. And I go and watch every
highlight, and every highlight I’m watching,
it’s third down. It’s making a big play. It’s late
in the game when we’re down, to get us closer.
These are game-changing moments. It’s just
hard to take a lot of criticism and have to sit
there and be quiet all the time when you really
have so much to say. And I feel like I’ve really
dumbed down a lot of what I’ve wanted to say
because I know you can’t say everything and
I still never would. ’Cause if I do say the truth
truth, then things get taken the wrong way.
Sometimes things are better left unsaid.When commentators like Cris Carter say
you need to grow up and stop acting like
a boy, does stuff like that affect you?
Anybody who knows me knows. It’s hard to
sit there when Cris Carter talks about me.
Ray Lewis is another one who sits there and
talks to me like a little brother and shows love
to me in person—we hug and embrace—but
then they get on TV and say some stuff like “He
doesn’t know who God is.” Like, how do you
judge another man’s relationship with God?
I feel like Drake when he said, “I’m always
the bigger artist, that’s why I have to play it
smarter.” That’s how I feel. But it’s hard, as a
man, to just sit there and take and take and
take, and not want to say something or do
something back or retaliate.If you seem unbothered after a loss,
people are upset.
It’s like you don’t care enough.Exactly. But when you’re livid during
a losing game, folks say you’re being
emotional.
And that I’m immature.Do you think race plays a part in the
double standard you’re dealing with?
Race plays into everything, whether we want
to believe it or not. I remember posting a video
of me and Tom Brady, and I hate to even bring
him in this, but he’s passionate. He cares—he
wouldn’t still be playing if he didn’t care for the
game the way that he did today. He throws a
cup, he yells at referees, he yells at his coach. It’s
because he cares that bad. He wants to win that
bad. Now, because he has won six Super Bowls
they validate him and say, “He’s won six Super
Bowls.” I want to win the same way he wantsto win. Whether I hit a kicking net or whether
I do whatever. I want to win that bad. I care
about winning more than anything. I didn’t get
into this to celebrate and score touchdowns. I
didn’t get into this for followers for Instagram.
It’s, like, you’ve built a monster, but now you’re
upset at the one you built. Why are you mad at
me? While I’m playing football, I’m not hold-
ing a camera on myself. Everything is about
what you show the world. I get my free time 16
times a year, hopefully, plus a few games when
we make the playoffs. I get 16 times to do this.
There are 365 days in a year. You’re controlling
my freedom. This is my joy, this is my time.I think most people would be surprised
to hear you classify your “free time” as
the time you’re actually playing football.
All I get is 16 of those moments. I wake up every
day from 6:30 a.m., to then leave the facility at
5 p.m., to then have to go home, do two hours
of rehab, to then do whatever, to then need to
go to sleep, like I said. I have six hours a day
to do what they would call free time. My free
time is spent on a table, doing a massage or
yoga. There’s not enough time in the day. So
when I do have that game-day Sunday, I thank
God for waking me up today, because nothing
else matters. I get to go out here and do what
I love. And that time gets stripped from me.
I’ve literally had days where I’ve felt it stripped
from me and I go home. That is when I’m most
hurt, and it’s the hardest days to deal with. You
have your whole family come there to watch
and, hopefully, be there to celebrate with you,
and you don’t get to have that.... It’s not so I can
score touchdowns, so I can do a celebration. It’s
to win. To be able to play my very best on the
field every single time.That’s another reason you’d possibly be
better off in a different sport. Baseball
players play, like, 728 games a year.
Not even that! In football we all play a position.
We’re all depending on somebody else. If the
right tackle misses a block or the right guard
misses a block and it’s a pass play and the quar-
terback is getting sacked, you don’t get your
opportunity. Basketball, you can come down
and get crossed up, dunked on, take the ball
right back, hit him up, and hit a three. It’s an
individual sport, but it’s within a team.Do you think there’s any validity to
the criticism that you’re not a good
teammate?
You can literally ask any one of my teammates.
My on-the-field football never gets talked about
unless people are talking about antics. They
don’t talk about numbers. Where’s the reel at?
People only want to focus on one thing. I feel
like I’m one of the only people in the NFL where
my personal life and my brand are the only
things that get talked about. They’ll do a whole
segment about the car that I have on ESPN.
Why? I’ve never been arrested. Never have and
never will be putting my hands on a woman.
I’ve never done any crimes. I’ve never done
anything but some little petty, dumb stuff that
we keep harping on. They asked, how could I
have changed if I didn’t go to OTAs? I have to
be the very best me to help my team. We don’t
get paid to be at OTAs. If you want players to be
*Odell often speaks in Drake lyrics. there, make it mandatory and pay them. I got