New York Giants guard Justin Pugh thinks the Odell Beckham offseason mini-drama might have been unfair to the star wideout.
"Odell, I've been with him for three, four years now. I know how he is," Pugh said on NFL Network's Good Morning Football on Monday. "It's gotta be tough being him though. I always try to look at things from his perspective and see what he goes through. I see that, and I'm like, 'Come in, get ready to work,' he's in great shape. I wonder if we could get a list of all the guys that didn't go to [organized team activities]. I guarantee, put them all together and they didn't get as much publicity as Odell.
"He's the biggest name in our game. You go anywhere in the world and people are going to recognize Odell Beckham. So obviously him not being there is a big deal. But he showed up in great shape, ready to roll. I'm good with it. ... There's things going on during OTAs. He has a lot of stuff going on in his life, probably more than an offensive lineman has going on. Hey, he's ready to go."
Pugh is right, though Beckham is better than many at fanning flames that are about to go out anyway. Beckham received far more critical treatment than someone like Rams star Aaron Donald, who also skipped his team's entire slate of voluntary workouts. He is arguably just as valuable to his particular unit.
At this point, nothing Beckham does is going to become an issue with Giants management or its players until the production stops matching any negative attention (fair or unfair) Beckham attracts. Just last week, Giants co-owner John Mara said he wished he had a dozen players like Beckham. Before that, he said he wanted Beckham in New Jersey for the rest of his career.
Everyone in the building understands the kind of transcendent star power they have in Beckham and if anyone is unhappy about the way he's living his life, no one is speaking up.