Odell Beckham Jr. has broken his silence on his short-lived second stint with the New York Giants, saying in comments on a fan’s Instagram post that the team took advantage of him before cutting him last week.
The Giants released Beckham on Sept. 29. He had signed a one-year veterans salary benefit deal worth $1.3 million, a structure that let the team avoid paying full veteran minimum money and included no guarantees. Beckham, 33, was active for three games during his return but caught zero passes after being targeted just once.
In his Instagram reply, Beckham suggested he had been shortchanged despite helping the team win.
“I’m super smart!!!! But I didn’t see this one, my brotha,” Beckham wrote. “They got me!!!”
“They won on top of the money u talkin [about], I made them. I came in HUMBLY took vet min then EARNED my spot [and] didn’t say nothing bout no $$$ which I [know] make for everybody.”
He added that while the release itself didn’t shake him, the manner of it did.
“Ima tell u this ima grown man and this [sh-t] didn’t hurt me but it did when they cut me like that cause part of me is like I shoulda known better.”
Beckham, who played for the Giants from 2014 to 2018 and returned this year to what was widely described as a warm homecoming, said the toughest moment came afterward, at home with his son.
“Now let me [tell] u the [real] deal truth [that] hurt my heart to the core is [coming] home and seeing my son and how happy he was with no idea of what happened and talkin’ [about] my job [and] jersey number 13 broke me [the f–k] down.”
He also said the Giants strung him along, which he believes cost him the chance to sign elsewhere during training camp, the preseason and most of September.
“[I don’t know] why they even gave me the run along. I [could have] really been playing this year somewhere and making [an] impact and I mean that from a person whose humbled by God and life.”
Beckham did not demand his old jersey number back when he returned to the Giants, and at the time said he never wanted to leave the franchise in the first place.
A reunion for a third time isn’t out of the question if injuries thin out the Giants’ receiving corps later this season. But public criticism of a team’s front office and coaching staff tends to work against players hoping to be re-signed.
