CLEVELAND — So now Odell Beckham Jr. handing out wads of cash to LSU players and slapping a security guard on the rear end during a postgame celebration has attracted the attention of the NCAA and the New Orleans police, respectively?
Seems Beckham still can’t get away from double coverage.
Is the latest news involving the Browns wide receiver a big deal? No.
Nothing ever really is with Beckham. That’s also not the point.
The issues he creates out of thin air aren’t individually serious enough to outweigh his talent. The same might be argued about the cumulation, though Beckham’s last team eventually reached a different conclusion.
Now the Browns have a new head coach. They will have a new GM shortly. They’ll soon go about the business of assessing strengths and weaknesses, no doubt with an evangelical belief that their Browns Way can bring all personalities into the fold.
They will see Beckham as a big part of the explosive offense Kevin Stefanski promised in his introductory press conference and an invaluable weapon for a quarterback in need of a rebound.
They won’t be wrong. That part is never wrong.
It’s Beckham’s narcissistic need to be the center of attention that brings the challenge.
Beckham Fatigue became a real thing for the Giants in New York and it’s repeating itself here.
If only he got as tired of his antics as others do.
RELATED: Arrest warrant issued for Odell Beckham Jr. after allegedly slapping security officer's butt
- I know, poor guy. Attention keeps finding him, no matter how hard he tries to hide in front of the cameras while slapping $100 bills into the palms of LSU players.
- If the Browns keep Beckham, Baker Mayfield can’t go into another season worried about his wide receiver’s happiness, number of catches, touchdowns, etc. Especially if the new coach is going to commit to maximizing the talents of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, there could be less to go around in the passing game.
There’s a lot to navigate there for a rookie head coach. If all Beckham really cares about is winning, it could work.
Right?
Riiiiight.
- NFL.com take on the Browns:
“The budding Browns team now has an equally green coach with whom to grow together for what looks like a very bright future.”
That was written in early January.
2019.
- Another quote from last year:
“It takes some guts to do what they did.”
Freddie Kitchens wasn’t wrong when he said that about Freddie Kitchens.
- Jimmy Haslam is hoping the Stefanski hire is longer on smarts than it is on guts.
- Stefanski doesn’t need advice from the likes of us. But I’d tell him to err on the side of holding players accountable rather than publicly excusing bad behavior to make those players feel supported by the head coach.
For instance, if Mayfield makes a lewd gesture in celebration of a touchdown, maybe don’t say what his head coach said last year while the quarterback awaited an appeal on his league fine.
“I mean, I don’t know what he did wrong,” Kitchens said. “I don’t understand what the big deal is. He’s in the middle of an NFL game.
“There’s great emotion in the game of football. And whatever he does on the football field is on the football field.”
Got it, Dean Wormer.
- The latest on the sign-stealing scandal in Major League Baseball is that MLB says its investigation did not uncover evidence that Astros hitters wore buzzers under their jersey tops that tipped them off to certain pitches.
The use of buzzers was suggested in a since deleted Tweet from an account purportedly belonging to the niece of former Astros star Carlos Beltran.
OK.
So when Jose Altuve pleaded with his teammates not to rip his jersey off after a postseason walk off homer, it was because…why?…he thought his “If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying” tattoo would be misunderstood?
- Altuve was asked about why he didn’t want his jersey torn off in celebration.
“I’m too shy,” he told Ken Rosenthal “The last time I did that I got in trouble with my wife.”
He then thanked the eye in the sky.
God, I mean.
- Remember that MLB investigation after an Astros official pointed a cell phone camera into the Indians dugout during 2018 division series? The one where MLB cleared Houston of wrongdoing because it said the Astros were just making sure the Indians weren’t cheating against them?
”We were playing defense, we were not playing offense," now suspended and fired Houston GM Jeff Luhnow said then.
This investigation is at least as believable.
- The father of LSU Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow says his son has no problem playing for the Cincinnati Bengals, who own the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL draft.
“We’ve talked about it,” Jim Burrow told TSN 690 radio in Montreal. "I can be in my seat in 3.5 hours from Athens. That’s certainly a positive. He’s excited to be in that conversation and if the Bengals do draft him, he’s going to be happy.”
After his recent “It’s not chili, it’s just sauce” critical restaurant review for Barstool Sports, Burrow will be happy in Cincy so long as Bengals fans don’t insist on buying him Skyline for dinner.
- Kansas City’s Tyreek Hill on the inevitability of the Chiefs offense:
“I feel like nobody in the NFL can guard any of us, and that’s no disrespect to nobody,” Hill said, via NFL.com. “That’s just the confidence that I got in myself and the wideouts I’ve got around me, including the tight ends and the running backs.
“I feel like no DB unit, no secondary unit, no linebacker, any defense can guard any of us. So man-to-man is just easy for us to beat. If you just allow us to run through zones, it’s even easier.”
Imagine if he were trying to disrespect Tennessee.
- Titans 27, Chiefs 24.
- Green Bay 24, Niners 23.
- So bet the opposite and have a weekend.