The Giants intend on Odell Beckham Jr. playing in New York for a long time, but talks on a new contract haven't started yet.
"They haven't begun as of yet, but ... they'll happen at the appropriate time," co-owner John Mara told Steve Serby of the New York Post. "I don't think we have a time frame on it. But we certainly don't want to see him playing in another uniform."
Beckham will make $1.839 million in 2017, and the Giants exercised the fifth-year option for 2018. The electric playmaker stayed away from voluntary offseason workouts, but returned for mandatory minicamp last season. It was reported that OBJ skipped those workouts in hopes of getting a new contract (his new shoe contract pays him more than his football one this year).
Mara didn't seem worried about eventually getting a deal done with Beckham and knows when the time comes the Giants will have to pony up the moolah.
"Listen, he's as exciting a player as we have had on this team in my lifetime, and he brings a lot of energy, a lot of big plays to us," Mara said. "And when you cut through everything else, he actually is a really good kid. He does a lot of wonderful things off the field that people don't know about. He needs to work on controlling his emotions a little bit more. But when he is on the field, the other teams have to pay attention to him ... and he strikes fear into the eyes of the other team. As long as you have that ability, he makes your team better. He just adds a lot to us. We really haven't had a player like that here for a long time."
Mara said it's "possible" a deal could come during the season, but isn't putting any predictions or timetables on a new contract. The Big Blue owner is confident Beckham has grown from last season's boating "controversy" and will continue to grow as he gets older.
"I think he's a work in progress, I think he's going to mature," he said. "I had a great conversation with him in the spring about that. I think he understands that. But he's always going to be an emotional player, and we're going to have to live with, hopefully, an occasional and rare outburst every once in a while because he wants to win so badly. But I think he is going to mature. He's 24 years old. You weren't the most mature guy at the age of 24, were you?"
There is no question that on the field Beckham is the most explosive talent in the NFL and carried the Giants offense for the entire 2016 campaign. Mara knows sooner or later he'll have to pay for the privilege of keeping OBJ in New York.
