Odell Beckham says Giants “need to play with some heart,” questions offense

Odell Beckham Jr. said earlier this week that he didn’t know if frustration was the right word to characterize how he felt about the New York Giants 1-3 start and his lack of impact plays. Well, in an explosive interview Josina Anderson of ESPN he certainly sounded frustrated — ripping the Giants “heart,” and their offense.

Via NJ.com, here is what Beckham said:

“It’s a different place. The energy isn’t like where I say we come from. It isn’t that savage mentality. It’s partly the NFL. It’s different than college. When we left practice in college, we were going to eat University Seafood or (Raising) Canes. We’re going to chill in the room. We chill together.

”When everybody leaves, they’ve got a family, they’ve got a wife, they’ve got kids to go home to. I don’t have that. So I try to build that relationship with my teammates because I want to know who am I going to war with every day. When the heat is on, who is this person outside of just being at work and saying what’s up?

“A lot of it has to do with the energy we have that we don’t bring every single day. You know me: I’m a passionate, energetic person. I always have to have that. If I don’t, it’s going to be a problem for me. Playing with some heart, we need to play with some heart.

”We’re only 1-3. The year we went 11-5 (in 2016) we were 2-3. We ended up being 2-3 after five games. You never know when you can go on the run. It’s just a matter of when we are going to go on a run.

”How come we can’t throw the ball for more than 20 yards? How come we don’t attempt or try to throw the ball for more than 20 yards? Those are questions we have to figure out. For now, I would say it’s our heart, our energy, it’s what we bring when we line up before the game. All of that. It counts.”

However those remarks were intended they can easily be interpreted as a shot at his teammates, and specifically at quarterback Eli Manning — who happens to be a married man with three small children.

Coach Pat Shurmur disagreed with with the notion the Giants don’t play with enough heart.

“That’s probably a better question for him, what he meant by it, but I do know this: our team has a heck of a lot of heart, our team plays with a lot of energy,” Shurmur said. “What we haven’t done is we haven’t executed quite as well as we need to yet, and that’s really, instead of energy, it’s more execution. That’s what we’re all striving for. We’ve got a locker room full, these guys have a ton of heart, including Odell, and a lot of want-to, and I think we’ll break over here once we start executing better.”

Asked if there would be any discipline, Shurmur said “For what? I would say this – I think I clarified what I think the answer might have been, and you need to just clarify with him what he meant. That’s all.”