Odell Beckham Jr. Makes Giants' 53-Man Roster, 12 Years After They Drafted Him

Odell Beckham Jr. made the New York Giants' 53-man roster on Aug. 30, on a one-year, veteran-minimum contract with no guaranteed money. Twelve years earlier, the same franchise made him the 12th overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft and watched him put together one of the best rookie seasons by any wide receiver in NFL history.

In between: a trade to Cleveland, two torn ACLs, a Super Bowl ring, a six-game suspension and two full seasons without a team. Beckham is 33 now. The Giants' Aug. 30 roster deadline settled it: Beckham made the team.

The rookie year

The Giants drafted Beckham out of LSU with the 12th pick on May 8, 2014, then watched a hamstring injury wipe out his summer; he didn't debut until Oct. 5. Seven weeks later, on Nov. 23 against Dallas, he produced the signature moment of his rookie season: 10 catches, 146 yards, two touchdowns, and a diving, three-finger, one-handed grab in the end zone that NFL.com's Gregg Rosenthal called the catch of the year. Fox Sports, The Huffington Post and Esquire ran similar verdicts within days, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame put the jersey from that game on display two weeks later.

Beckham finished with 91 catches, 1,305 yards and 12 touchdowns in 12 games — still the only rookie season in NFL history with at least 90 catches and 10 touchdowns — and won the Associated Press' Offensive Rookie of the Year award.

A Hall of Fame pace, with an asterisk

By the time Beckham turned 26 in November 2018, ESPN's Jordan Raanan set his numbers next to the standard he was actually being measured against: Hall of Famers. Through his first 55 games, Beckham had 374 catches, 5,209 yards and 40 touchdowns — a pace that put him more than 1,000 yards ahead of Jerry Rice, the NFL's all-time leading receiver, at the same age. His touchdown rate, 0.73 per game, trailed only Lance Alworth, Rice and Randy Moss among a group that also included Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Terrell Owens and Michael Irvin. Every other name on that list is in Canton; Fitzgerald was enshrined Aug. 8.

The one caveat Raanan flagged is the one that ended up mattering: games played. Beckham had appeared in 55 games before turning 26, against 80 for Moss and 76 for Fitzgerald. He was also historically fast — the fastest player ever to 200 career receptions, in 30 games, and tied for the fastest to 4,000 receiving yards, at 42 games.

In five seasons before the trade, Beckham caught more passes for more yards and touchdowns than every receiver in Giants history except Amani Toomer, who played 190 games for the franchise to Beckham's 59.

Beckham's 92.8 receiving yards per game is still the highest of any Giant with at least 50 games in uniform, according to Giants.com.

In the same stretch, he was suspended one game in 2015 for safety-rule violations during a running fight with Carolina cornerback Josh Norman, drew criticism for a boat trip to Miami with teammates days before a 2016 playoff loss, and fractured his left ankle in Week 5 of 2017, ending that season after four games. In August 2018, the Giants signed him to a five-year, $95 million extension with $41 million guaranteed.

The trade

In September 2016, after an Eli Manning interception in the red zone, Beckham slammed his helmet into a sideline kicking net and was seen crying on the bench, Sports Illustrated reported. Three weeks later he "proposed" to the same net after a game-winning touchdown, and the league fined him $24,309 for removing his helmet during the celebration, per CBS Sports.

In October 2018, asked on a Sunday NFL Countdown segment with rapper Lil Wayne whether he was happy in New York, Beckham called it "a tough question," Sports Illustrated reported. He has since said he questioned the point of the $95 million extension almost as soon as he signed it — "Why did we even sign this contract? What did we sign this for?" — according to NBC Sports' Pro Football Talk.

The Giants traded him to Cleveland in March 2019, along with defensive end Olivier Vernon, for guard Kevin Zeitler, safety Jabrill Peppers and two draft picks, the Browns announced. Browns general manager John Dorsey called him "probably if not the one, one or two best receivers in the National Football League."

Beckham later said the trade blindsided him — general manager Dave Gettleman delivered the news by phone, he said, while coach Pat Shurmur only followed up by text. "I felt disrespected," he said, according to Pro Football Talk. "They weren't even man enough to even sit me down to my face and tell me what's going on."

Cleveland

Beckham caught 74 passes for 1,035 yards in his first Cleveland season, then tore his left ACL in Week 7 of 2020. In November 2021, after his father posted an Instagram video of plays on which Baker Mayfield didn't throw to an open Beckham, the Browns released him. General manager Andrew Berry said the move was "in the best interest of all parties involved," according to NFL.com's Kevin Patra. Beckham finished his Cleveland tenure with 114 catches for 1,586 yards and seven touchdowns over 29 games.

The Rams and Super Bowl LVI

The Los Angeles Rams signed him in November 2021, three days after he cleared waivers. He caught 27 passes for 305 yards and five touchdowns in eight regular-season games, scored a touchdown in the wild-card win over Arizona, and caught nine passes for 113 yards in the NFC championship game win over San Francisco.

In Super Bowl LVI against Cincinnati, Beckham caught the game's opening touchdown on a 17-yard throw from Matthew Stafford and added a 35-yard catch before injuring his left knee on an incomplete pass late in the second quarter. The next day, NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported the injury was believed to be a torn ACL — his second in the same knee in 16 months. The Rams won, 23-20, without him for the second half.

Beckham has said the injury cost him what he believes would have been his best game. "I knew that I was probably going to be the best person on the field that day. I just wanted to have that moment," he said in 2023, in comments reported by CBS Sports. A year later, he put a number on it in an interview with NBC Sports' Peter King: "It was gonna be the day where I catch 15 balls, maybe 250 yards. ... The gameplan was for me." Fifteen catches would have broken the Super Bowl record; 250 yards would have topped Jerry Rice's mark. Instead, he finished with two catches for 52 yards and a touchdown, and watched the second half from the sideline as the Rams held on.

He didn't sign anywhere in 2022 while he rehabbed the knee, and showed up, still unsigned, when the Rams raised their championship banner that September.

The wandering years

In November 2022, Beckham was removed from an American Airlines flight in Miami after the crew reported he appeared to be drifting in and out of consciousness, according to Miami-Dade police; he was not detained or cited, and his attorney said he had simply been asleep. He signed with John Harbaugh's Ravens in April 2023 and had his first 100-yard game since 2021 in a Week 11 win over Cincinnati, but finished the season with 35 catches for 565 yards and was released the following spring. Miami signed him in 2024; he opened the year on the physically unable to perform list and finished with nine catches for 55 yards in nine games — career lows — before the two sides parted ways in December.

He didn't play at all in 2025. That October, on "The Pivot Podcast," he said he had accepted a six-game suspension for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing drug policy, stemming from a test he failed the previous year with Miami. He said the league told him his testosterone levels were too high, and that he never knowingly took a banned substance. He named the Steelers, Chiefs and Rams as teams he'd want to sign with, and said separately that he hoped to return to the Giants before he retired.

Back where it started

The Giants signed Beckham on June 1, 2026, the same day as receivers Braxton Berrios and JuJu Smith-Schuster, reuniting him with Harbaugh — now New York's head coach — on a one-year, veteran-minimum deal. "If I regret anything, it's not winning here and not being the guy that I could have been and allowing things to get in the way of that," he told ESPN's Jordan Raanan after his third practice back in June. "Other than that, I wish that things could've gone differently, but they went exactly as they were supposed to."

Beckham told Raanan he and Harbaugh had discussed the possibility of being cut before he signed: "I'm going out on my sword either way it goes ... I can't live with sitting at home not doing it."

Making the roster

In the preseason finale against the Jets on Aug. 28, Beckham caught three passes for 53 yards in a 23-6 win at MetLife Stadium, according to Giants.com's game analysis.

Afterward, Harbaugh made it explicit: "I think he has done enough to make an NFL roster, for sure. He's played well, and he's gotten better as his camp's gone along. He deserves credit for that. He's done a really good job with it."

Two days later, on Aug. 30, it became official: the Giants kept five receivers — Malik Nabers, Malachi Fields, Darnell Mooney, Darius Slayton and Beckham. "I am excited. I found out when I was walking off the field," Beckham told Josina Anderson by phone after practice, Anderson wrote on X. He added: "I have one more gear to go; one more gear in me. I came to New York to give my all, and that's what they're going to get out of me. To the city, to the fans, I love you."

Twelve years after the Giants made him the 12th pick, Beckham will play at least one more NFL season in the uniform he started his career in. The next test comes Sept. 13, when the Giants host Dallas to open the season — his first regular-season game for the franchise since Dec. 2, 2018.