Odell Beckham Jr., JuJu Smith-Schuster could provide Giant leadership to young team
The Giants' Odell Beckham Jr. speaks at a news conference during OTAs on June 3 in East Rutherford, N.J. Credit: Ed Murray
Isaiah Likely remembered seeing Odell Beckham Jr. in person for the first time. It was hard to miss him. Sporting a mohawk that was dyed purple, Beckham had just signed with the Ravens and was making his return to the field after he tore his ACL in the Super Bowl for the Rams and sat out the entire 2022 season.
“It was like you were tapping your friend, like, ‘Man, that's Odell!’ ” said Likely, then a second-year tight end in Baltimore who came to the Giants as a free agent this offseason.
That was the case for Giants rookie cornerback Colton Hood when Beckham joined the team last month, too.
“When Odell came, Hood was like ‘Dang, that’s Odell!’ ” said defensive pass coordinator Donald D’Alesio of the reaction. “He grew up watching Odell play and now he is going to cover him. We joked about it in the room a little bit with Hood.”
Maybe that conversation was still running through Hood’s mind when Beckham beat him with a double move for a wide-open deep catch in a minicamp practice last month, then high-stepped backward into the end zone.
That funky hairstyle has grown out — and grown up — since Likely first saw it, and the receiving skills have definitely gotten a tad less explosive than they were when Beckham was the most dynamic player in the game during his first stint with the Giants. But the Odell Aura is certainly still there.
The question the Giants will face in their training camp that begins next week in West Virginia is whether that’s enough for them to keep him around. Beckham and another decorated, Super Bowl-winning veteran receiver, JuJu Smith-Schuster, were signed to the 90-man roster because the Giants were faced with a rash of injuries at the position.
Malik Nabers is still recovering from his 2025 season-ending knee injury and may not be ready for the start of the regular season while Darius Slayton is rehabbing from sports hernia surgery and Gunner Olszewski recently tore his Achilles. The Giants needed bodies to get them through their offseason program just as they will need them to get through training camp.
Come September, though, they’ll start to need more. They’ll need production. And it will be up to Beckham and Smith-Schuster to prove they can provide that, or else they won’t be around for long.
They may bring intangibles, but as coach John Harbaugh bluntly put it: “I know those guys are adding to that part of it where they're talking to the younger guys and showing them the ropes, so to speak, but it's a unique situation because they're also competing for a spot on the team, too.”
Whatever success the Giants reach this season will almost certainly be driven by their young core. Quarterback Jaxson Dart will have to make a jump in his second season as the team’s starter. Nabers and running Cam Skattebo will need to get and remain healthy. Brian Burns and Abdul Carter and rookie Arvell Reese will need to become terrors on defense. Likely and Hood will have to exceed what they have done in the past.
Perhaps, though, there will be a spot for Beckham or Smith-Schuster, or some other yet unsigned and yet unnamed veteran, to add to the fabric of the roster. Recent Super Bowl-winning teams have had such players at various positions, whether it was Cooper Kupp with the Seahawks last year, Brandon Graham with the Eagles before that or Donovan Smith with Kansas City the year before that. They are the slightly-past-their-prime players who still have something to offer.
Recent vintages of Giants championships have had similar players too, from R.W. McQuarters and Sam Madison on the 2007 team to Deon Grant on the 2011 squad one.
Might Beckham or Smith-Schuster be that player for this year’s team? Could they both be?
Beckham hasn’t caught an NFL pass since he was with the Dolphins in 2024 and hasn’t caught a touchdown since 2023 with the Ravens. Smith-Schuster had one touchdown grab for Kansas City last season but hasn’t had more than 33 catches in a season since 2022. They both signed one-year contracts that the Giants can easily move on from at any point.
So the younger Giants on both offense and defense can learn from the players they used to watch. Hood can figure out how to stop those moves that he'll start seeing with regularity on Sundays. Rookie receiver Malachi Fields, a third-round pick, can pick up pointers on his route-running. And undrafted rookie Dalen Cambre can make one-handed grabs across the middle of the field in practice as he did during minicamp and then return to the sideline to be congratulated by the guy who practically invented the move.
Yes, they can gawk and geek out a little, too.
Then, however, those vets will need to earn their spots as players and not spectacles.
Likely, who used to be in awe of Beckham, said he reached out to his old teammate when he heard they would be reunited with the Giants.
“I gave him a little text, talking about, ‘Hey, you're on my team now, rook,’ ” Likely said.
For now he is. For now.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
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