Odell Beckham Jr. Catches On With The Browns

It didn’t take long for Odell Beckham Jr. to make an impression on Cleveland Browns fans during his first training camp workout with his new team.

Beckham and quarterback Baker Mayfield hooked up on back-to-back sideline passes in 11-on-11 drills during one sequence. Each time, the wide receiver flashed the hands and footwork that made him a three-time All-Pro player with the New York Giants.

Both plays — leaping catches — drew gasps and cheers from a sellout crowd at the Browns’ training facility and perhaps served notice that Mayfield and Beckham might be ahead of the chemistry curve as new teammates. 

“God gifted me with some gifts,” Beckham says. “If it is put in the right spot, to me nothing feels like a hard catch.”

Beckham caught 390 passes for 5,476 yards and 44 touchdowns in five seasons with the Giants, who traded him to the Browns in March. He’s also one of the most recognizable players in the NFL, a generational talent just as known for making highlight-reel acrobatic catches as he is for making striking fashion statements.

“The harder catches are the easiest ones,” he says. “A lot of receivers would say the same. The easy catches, you really have to focus on.”

Some critics knocked on Beckham for his behavior with the Giants — over-the-top touchdown celebrations, sideline antics and fines. He’s also been injury-prone: He played in all 16 regular-season games only once in 2016.

But although he expressed frustration with the Giants’ lagging offense in recent years, it could be that all Beckham needed was a fresh start after five years in the glare of the New York cameras on a subpar team. Joining a team like the Browns, with playoff aspirations, could be a huge plus, and Beckham senses the excitement from the crowds in Berea and beyond.

“You can feel it. You don’t even have to hear,” he says. “I’m a real empath, so I can feel the hunger and the want to win from these fans and that’s something we want to showcase and give to them.”

While Beckham and fellow wide receiver Jarvis Landry are friends from their days playing together at Louisiana State University, he says he is still getting to know his other teammates.

“Whenever I sit down to eat in the cafe [at the Browns training facility], I sit with a different group of people,” he says. “I sit there, talk and communicate and get to know these guys. When the ball is snapped ... it is just us out there, so you have to get to know who you are battling with.”