OWINGS MILLS, Md.—Biggest surprise in two weeks on the camp trail: the psyche and maturity of new Ravens wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.
I do not know Beckham well. I hadn’t talked to him in several years, since the Giants’ days. I came here thinking I’d write about Lamar Jackson being back in the fold and trying to recapture the staying power and electricity of his four-year-old MVP season. Time for that will come this summer. But I found Beckham to be a compelling story—30 going on 45, a different man than the one many in football didn’t care for and presumed was living out his NFL days with one last payday. But he’s been a different Beckham in his first Baltimore offseason. He’s turned into a leader, one Raven said. Totally unselfish, an exec said.
We met in the Ravens’ indoor facility, post-practice on Wednesday. Coach John Harbaugh had given him a veteran rest day. He’s dyed his hair purple. I found Beckham calm and thoughtful, seeming to understand the road doesn’t go on forever, and wouldn’t his legacy be best served if in his last stop he could make a slew of explosive plays and be a wise man too?
“In my career, even when I was the young guy, I was always looked [at] as an older guy because of what I accomplished early in my career,” Beckham said. “I feel that part of the reason why I was brought here was to be that person for those younger guys. Try to show them the good and bad, because, as you know, I’ve already been through a lot of the bad. I believe I have the blueprint for what to do and what not to do, and I just try and share that with them.
“I think my biggest thing now is the way that I listen. I’ll sit there and just listen. Hear them out. When I was younger, even if I respected a person, if someone’s talking and talking and telling me information, I think it’s hard to lead that way. Everybody’s story’s different. You have to understand a person, really understand them, before you tell them how to do something, I think. It’s kinda cool. I actually love the role.”
I wondered about Beckham’s influence on the new Beckham, so to speak, first-round pick Zay Flowers. What an impressive player. His separation is already other-worldly. Through the offseason Beckham has been a resource for him, even though Flowers is smart and mature himself.
“You know that question people are always asking—what would you tell your 21-year-old self? When I think of the question, my journey isn’t Zay’s. You have to tell your 21-year-old self you’re gonna go through your own journey. There’s no manual for what you’re gonna go through. You’re gonna have a lot of f---ups. You’re gonna learn from them. You don’t wanna make the big mistake, but if you do, you usually grow from it and get stronger.”
“Ever wish you could change one or two things about your career, your life?” I said.
“If I could go back,” Beckham said, “would I like to have a career where the first three years of my career could have been repeated? Yeah, of course. I’d be sitting here, 30 years old, with 100 touchdowns and 14,000 yards. I wish I could’ve never been injured, never shattered my ankle or came back too early from a high ankle sprain. But those are things I now have to live with. I can’t live in regret for the rest of my life.”
Beckham’s been chasing his 22-year-old self for the last six seasons. At 22, 23 and 24, he had 1,300-yard receiving seasons. He hasn’t had a season of 1,300 yards in any of the six seasons since, mostly due to injuries. It seems highly unlikely after all these years, but Beckham thinks he can turn the clock back, and the Ravens handed him a huge payday--$15 million guaranteed for 2023, in part to appease the then-unsigned Lamar Jackson—to chase his best self too.
His best self. “That’s how I felt when I was at the Rams [in the Super Bowl season, 2021] and I wasn’t even getting the ball that much. [Ravens receiver Rashod] Bateman asked me the other day, ‘Did you feel like yourself at the Rams? Because it really looked like you were back to having fun. They were playing you man-to-man and you were catching every pass.’ That’s how I felt. Unfortunately, I was playing knowing I was probably gonna have to have ACL surgery.”
Beckham had a 113-yard receiving game in the 2021 NFC title game against the Niners, then scored an early TD against the Bengals in the Super Bowl. He told me the Super Bowl was supposed to be the reaffirmation of his greatness.
“People have no idea what I was actually gonna do that day,” Beckham said. “It was gonna be the day where I catch 15 balls, maybe 250 yards. The gameplan was for me. We would’ve beat ‘em 42-17.”
He hasn’t played a football game in the 18 months since. He’s had two ACL surgeries since turning 28. No one knows what he’ll give the Ravens, but he said he feels healthy and ready to be a major factor. “I think that there’s still some dust on that ’76 Mustang that we need to work out, but the car runs beautifully.”
The one thing he says he realizes, as he prepares to play football for the first time in his thirties, is how much he still wants to play. “I feel like I’m walking that fine line of gratitude and happy to be healthy and playing football … but also I still wanna be great. Like, bad. I dropped a pass the other day and I was pissed about it. Really pissed. If I thought I didn’t care about this game, that dropped showed me no, I care. I absolutely care the same way I always have.”
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column.
