Keidel: Entering 3rd Season, Giants' Beckham Must Grow Up

By Jason Keidel
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As Odell Beckham Jr. enters his third NFL season, it feels like the entire nation is watching, peeking through a fence, frothing for his next YouTube moment.

The Giants' electric, eccentric wide receiver landed like a missile on the gridiron, taking an eraser to the record books while dashing out to the greatest start for a wideout in NFL history.

Beckham is not only a generational talent. He's also part of some flamboyant lineage among those who play the position, an implicit bond passed like a baton down the decades.

At no other position is a player normal for his wild, white mane and pregame acrobatics. Beckham fits right in -- spearing footballs with one hand in the back of the end zone, ears bulging with headphones, his quasi-soul patch now swells to a beard that curls under his face.

Beckham was a great player sans a singular play, but he will always be at least partially defined by that alien grab against Dallas in 2014, the left-handed snare while falling down, the ball and a flag intersecting around the goal line. (Lest we forget, he was interfered with on the play.)

But, as if to complete the wide receiver's DNA, Beckham has a temper that can clash with team goals. Like his unprecedented, WWE meltdown against the Carolina Panthers, particularly against Josh Norman, his newfound blood foe who somehow taunted and tormented Beckham into a breakdown of criminal contours. Beckham literally lost it -- punching, yanking and launching himself into Norman well after the whistle and well away from the play.

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Beckham hasn't forgotten. Indeed, he recently labeled himself the one who made Norman a household brand. Beckham insists that without their surreal, Sunday tete-a-tete, Norman would be a marginally talented, largely anonymous defensive back.

Beckham could also argue that his implosion got his head coach canned, that his penalties and subsequent suspension doubled as the last nail in Tom Coughlin's vocational coffin.

Even Charles Barkley is throwing down on Beckham. Barkley, who was known to be a little loquacious as an NBA star and has since rode his self-effacing style and caustic tongue to retirement riches, wonders if Beckham is basking in his headlines a bit too often.

Has all this come to him too quickly? Is he too young to fly so close to the sun? Beckham is already in a rare orbit, even by the distorted standards of NFL stardom. Some suffocate on the thin air, stumble from the makeshift pedestal of instant and rampant worship. Others are fueled by it.

Beckham is at a crossroads. He's not a novelty and no longer a neophyte. Now in his third year, he will be viewed as an ambassador, someone who not only leads the team in touchdowns, but also in film study. He has to remind himself that he may play on an island, but doesn't live on one.

Some apologists will draw a symbolic line between his atomic temper and his nuclear talent, that there's a direct correlation between his rants and his romps down the field, and that trying to get Beckham to gulp a chill pill would only stifle his ad-lib, athletic genius.

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Doesn't work like that. Especially not in the NFL, where precision and symmetry are essential, with each part of the organism dependent upon the other. An ill-timed flag for a late hit or cheap shot can cost a team way more than 15 yards. Just ask Vontaze Burfict.

From Terrell Owens to Chad Ochocinco to Randy Moss, it seems the otherworldly wideout carries not only a pigskin but a persona, and more baggage than Newark Liberty Airport. And beyond their talent and temerity and epic numbers, they had one more thing in common -- zero Super Bowl rings.

But it's absurd to suggest a franchise can't win a Super Bowl with Odell Beckham Jr. Teams have won with headaches on the sideline. The Steelers won with Santonio Holmes, who later imploded. The Giants won with Plaxico Burress, who later, well, you know. And Moss came within a few minutes of a Super Bowl ring, only to lose it to Burress' Giants.

More likely, you need to win while your wideouts are still young and underpaid. Once Beckham becomes a free agent, he will crash whatever ceiling has been set for players at his position. At that point the team that pays him will have less cap cash to secure the more nuanced but still vital positions that are essential to Super Bowl titles.

Beckham can still be electric and eccentric. He can still bogart the bold ink. As long as he keeps it on the sports page or back page, not Page Six.

Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel