Odell Beckham Jr. is giving his team a headache. Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
The world is changing at a pace that even kids can’t keep up with. The phone you just bought last week is obsolete. A robot is two months away from taking your job. I just saw an ad for a flying car.
Sports may be one of the last frontiers that remains unchanged. If you hit a grounder to short with a man on first it’s probably a double play, a hundred yards rushing is still the standard for a good game and no one has ever come back from a 1-0 deficit in soccer.
But there are some alarming trends that are changing sports. Let’s start with fashion. The guys are dressing differently these days. Seen Russell Westbrook lately? How about Chandler Parsons? Cam Newton? James Harden had an interesting layout in GQ. You can see that here.
Very colorful. Not something I would try to pull off but no one wants to see me in yellow leather pants, myself included.
They’re certainly not hurting anyone with their style. That’s not the case though with today’s NFL wide receiver. For some reason that position has drawn sport’s biggest divas and nut jobs. From T.O. to Dez to Odell these guys are revolutionizing the game with their antics. If they aren’t catching enough passes somebody’s going to pay and it’s usually their quarterback, but not always.
Dez Bryant called Cowboys owner Jerry Jones clueless and LB Sean Lee a snake. He turned down nice money in Baltimore and wouldn’t sign with Cleveland but says he still wants to play. Oooookay.
Terrell Owens set the standard for not only burning bridges but blowing them to smithereens. In a 2004 article for Playboy Magazine T.O. was asked if his former 49er quarterback Jeff Garcia was gay. T.O. answered “Like my boy tells me: If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, by golly, it’s a rat.”
On Donovan McNabb: “He’s a funny guy, not funny ‘ha ha.’ Me, personally, I don’t do well with two-faced people.”
At least with Dez and T.O. they went after their QB’s after they had left the team. Saying those things while in the locker room could create some serious problems. Case in point, Odell Beckham Jr.
Last month Odell made headlines with his interview on ESPN with Josina Anderson. When asked what was holding him back in the Giants offense he said “everything.” When asked if Eli Manning was the problem he said “I don’t know.” When asked if he was happy with the organization that just gave him a $95 million contract he said “It’s a tough question.”
This week Giants owner John Mara wished Beckham would get back to making headlines on the field instead of off it. “I think he needs to do a little more playing and a little less talking.”
No chance John. Odell is the same guy who lost a fight with the kicking net, got fined for peeing like a dog in his touchdown celebration and has conversations with sideline air conditioners.
The Giants are a complete mess (other than when they play the Texans) and the Raiders notwithstanding, the worst team in the league.
Maybe I’m old fashioned but you’d never hear a guy criticizing his coaches, quarterback and organization while he was still playing there but thanks to guaranteed money it might be something we’ll see plenty of in the future.
What can the Giants do? Fine him? They did. And? Anything more than a slap on the wrist would draw the ire of the players’ association. They can’t cut him. The salary cap wouldn’t allow it.
What can the Steelers do with Leveon Bell? His teammates broke the unwritten rules by calling him out for holding out. Is a man’s money no longer sacred? Apparently not.
James Harrison is telling him to fake a headache or hamstring all year and cash paychecks. Earl Thomas decided not to practice a few days then flipped off his sideline as he was being carted off the field. His own sideline? I don’t remember that ever being done before. What happened to the good old days when you flipped off the other team when you were hurt?
The line of what you do and don’t do has been moving for a while now. Authority had never been questioned before Latrell Sprewell choked his coach P.J. Carlisimo. We haven’t had that extreme in some time but it’s nothing now to criticize the coach if things are going badly.
In recent years we’ve seen high school football players taking out the referee with intentional hits and catchers ducking on a fastball that catches the ump in the chest. I wouldn’t mind if that happened to Joe West but it wasn’t him so I feel like you shouldn’t do that.
I’ve ceased to be amazed by anything that happens on or off the field anymore.
What’s next? A player retiring at halftime of a game? Wait...
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Josh Allen has never said a bad word about Stefon Diggs. As the Buffalo Bills prepare to face their former star receiver in a visit to Houston on Sunday, he insists the two went their separate ways on good terms.
And the quarterback wasn’t changing his stance a week ago, not wanting to ruffle any feathers when asked about the early season success the Bills have enjoyed with their spread-the-ball motto on offense.
He later explained that he spoke out after reading comments on social media in which people were attempting to twist the “everybody eats” motto into something being directed at Diggs.
Allen understands why Buffalo facing Diggs for the first time since a blockbuster trade sent him to Houston this offseason is a big deal. He raved about his former teammate.
“I’ve got a lot of love for him. I still do,” Allen said. “The things that he did for me in my career, and the things that he did in a Buffalo Bill uniform won’t be forgotten anytime soon, especially from me … (but) going into Year 7, I understand the business, and the aspect of what this league is, and again, I’m just trying to focus on what we got going on in this building.”
Diggs, a four-time Pro Bowler, is second on the Texans with 25 receptions for 233 yards. He has two receiving touchdowns and had the first rushing score of his career last week against the Jaguars. He spent the last four seasons in Buffalo, where he had more than 1,100 yards receiving each year, highlighted by an NFL-leading and career-high 1,535 yards in 2020.
He didn’t address Allen directly this week when talking about his time in Buffalo. Diggs did say his tenure with the Bills was “amazing” but that he’s solely focused on his future now and not interested in rehashing the past.
“A lot of other people are going to feel a way or have a lot to say about X, Y, Z, and I’m not mad at it,” he said Wednesday. “Football is a very emotional sport. I go in there and wear my heart on my sleeve, and I won’t stop, but for me, I block out the noise.”
“Nobody is going to run the routes but me,” he continued. “Nobody is going to watch the tape but me. I try not to get back into the back and forth about the opinions or how people feel. I’ve got a job to do; I try to get it done.”
Diggs has helped the Texans to a 3-1 start and Allen hasn’t missed a beat without him. The Bills also are 3-1, though they’re looking to bounce back after a 35-10 loss to the Ravens last week.
Texans coach DeMeco Ryans certainly knew how talented Diggs was when he arrived in Houston but said he has been pleasantly surprised to see his passion for the game.
“He loves football … you see it in the way he practices, the way he plays the game,” Ryans said. “He loves ball, he plays with effort and that is all you want.”
The blame game
Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady was still kicking himself for calling a trick play that backfired, squelching any chance of a Buffalo rally in the loss to Baltimore.
After opening the second half with a TD to cut the deficit to 21-10, the Bills faced second-and-7 at the Baltimore 44, when receiver Curtis Samuel took a direct snap and pitched the ball to Allen. The Ravens weren’t fooled and forced a fumble, which led to a TD six plays later.
“I probably can’t say it on Zoom,” Brady said when asked to sum up the call in one word. “There’s no excuses. I can give the justification of why it was on the call sheet, but at the end of the day, the timing was not what it should’ve been and it was costly.”
Nico’s start
While much of the focus this week has been on Diggs facing his former team, the star of Houston’s offense so far this season has been another receiver. Nico Collins had a career-high 12 catches for 151 yards and a touchdown against the Jaguars for his third 100-yard game this season. He leads the NFL with 489 yards receiving and is the first player in franchise history with more than 450 yards receiving though the first four games.
“He’s a strong, physical, fast, and big receiver,” Ryans said. “That’s an easy target for C.J. (Stroud) and Nico has showed up every time that we needed him.”
Feeding Samuel
In the Bills’ “everybody eats” motto on offense, Samuel has had difficulty finding a regular place at the table. The eighth-year player who enjoyed his best season in Carolina under Brady as the Panthers coordinator in 2020 has been limited to eight catches for 48 yards. More curious is Samuel has been on the field for only 68 of a total of 230 offensive snaps.
“We’d love to get him going and whether or not Khalil is in or out this week,” Allen said, referring to receiver Khalil Shakir, who is nursing a right ankle injury. “So we’re going to be calling on his number, and he is going to have to step up, make some plays, which we’ve got no doubt in his ability.”
Update: Shakir has been ruled out (ankle) for Sunday's game.