Odell Beckham Jr Tweets He Plans to Play '0' Preseason Snaps
.
Well this had to be a nice little wake up call for Pat Shurmur to kick off his weekend with. He probably isn’t even done with all his new-hire paper work with the Giants, gotten all his passwords logged into his computer or finished hanging the pictures in his office, and already OBJ is telling some slappy fan on Twitter he won’t be taking any snaps in the preseason. In the coaching business, having your most important player also happens to be a mercurial nutjob dictating terms before you’ve even gotten to March is never how you draw it up.
I’m not even saying that Beckham should take snaps in the preseason. He’s coming off a nasty ankle fracture and the wise thing to do may be to sit him out for the fauxball games. But that’s for the coach and medics to decide. Shurmur is bringing a new offense with him. A complicated blend of West Coast with elements of Norv Turner’s run-heavy attack. It’ll take time to install. It will require reps. And playing live-fire games against other teams will probably matter this year more than ever, even if the games themselves don’t. Again, that’s for him to decide, not some enabled diva wideout.
But what OBJ failed to tell @stanbryan81 is that he’s not planning to sit out because of his ankle. It’s about his contract. He’s said he wants a contract extension that would pay him $20 million a year. Which, while it would make him the highest paid wideout in the game, is probably not unreasonable. Especially coming off a year where, once he went down, the Giants’ whole Jenga tower fell to the floor. What is unreasonable is giving your new coach the Theon Greyjoy treatment before he’s held his first OTA.
But that’s the price of poker when you take the Giants’ job. You have to go in expecting to manage a narcissistic, boat riding, net beating, net proposing, coach killing, attention whoring, celebration penalty machine who’s been enabled by management since Day 1 of his rookie season. So you shouldn’t be surprised when he’s dictating playing time six months before anyone will even play. Good luck with that.