Justin Pugh Believes Beckham Received Unfair Criticism For Absence

Giants star wideout Odell Beckham Jr. received criticism last week after he skipped the teams optional OTAs. During the team’s OTAs, he was working out with former NFL quarterback Johnny Manziel. There was no incentive in his contract for the wideout to show up to the workouts, but coaches would like to see the whole team there. Giants guard, Justin Pugh, went on the record on Monday saying that Beckham has received unfair criticism for missing the team’s OTAs.

"Odell, I've been with him for three, four years now. I know how he is," Pugh said on NFL Network's Good Morning Football Monday. "It's gotta be tough being him though. I always try to look at things from his perspective and see what he goes through. I see that, and I'm like, 'Come in, get ready to work,' he's in great shape. I wonder if we could get a list of all the guys that didn't go to OTAs. I guarantee, put them all together and they didn't get as much publicity as Odell.

"He's the biggest name in our game. You go anywhere in the world and people are going to recognize Odell Beckham. So obviously him not being there is a big deal. But he showed up in great shape, ready to roll. I'm good with it. ... There's things going on during OTAs. He has a lot of stuff going on in his life, probably more than an offensive lineman has going on. Hey, he's ready to go."

Beckham has received criticism every since he and the other Giants wideouts went to Miami on a off-day last season. Aaron Donald of the Los Angeles Rams missed OTAs as well but was not under this amount of scrutiny. As long as Beckham continues to perform at a high-level, this shouldn’t be an issue with the Giants front office.