Breaking Down What Giants WR Odell Beckham Jr. Has Left to Give Jaxson Dart’s Offense

There seemed to be a nostalgic cheer coming from New York Giants fans when word came that receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and Big Blue were reuniting.

While that is a great story and a full-circle moment, the fact that Beckham returns to an offense with an abundance of receivers such as Calvin Austin, Darius Slayton and Darnell Mooney who have been more active than he has over the last two seasons means it is still a "wait and see" to see what he has left.

Beckham missed the entire season last year, and in 2024, he played only a couple of games for Miami. He’s had two ACL injuries since having been traded from the Giants after the 2018 season and has missed two seasons since 2020, his days as a consistent 100+ a season target long behind him.

To assess who he could still be at age 33, we looked at his 2023 performance with the Baltimore Ravens. It was a season in which he definitely flashed the abilities that made so many New York fans fall in love with him.

Let's take a look at the good, the great, and the ugly of today's Odell Beckham Jr.

The Good: Finding and settling down in an open area of the defense

The Good of new #NYGiants receiver Odell Beckham Jr is his ability to find an open area in the defense and settle in it. pic.twitter.com/rrDiQmTcYd
— Coach Gene Clemons (@geneclemons) June 2, 2026

We talk so much about Beckham's athleticism that we rarely give him credit for how smart a football player he is.

He understands how to run routes and find open areas to sit down in or move around. This is something he's always been good at, and he used to feast on it when playing with Eli Manning.

That's why it gives quarterbacks a chance to get him the ball even when he initially does not look open: because he's going to eventually find an open window to sit in.

With the Ravens, during times when Lamar Jackson would have to move around to buy time from the pass rush and create more opportunities for receivers to get open, many of those passes would end with him throwing to Odell Beckham.

That's because he understood the scramble drill and how to get to areas to help his quarterback win under duress.

The Great: Tracking the ball in air and adjusting to make the catch

The Great of new #NYGiants receiver Odell Beckham Jr is his ability to track the ball in air and adjust to make the catch. pic.twitter.com/uSddhTzHTH
— Coach Gene Clemons (@geneclemons) June 2, 2026

What has always been Beckham's greatest gift is his ability to track the football in the air while moving and then make physical adjustments to haul in the pass.

It's great to have high-quality hands to catch with, but if you don't know how to track the ball and put your body in position to grab it, then the hands are useless. That's what many people missed about Beckham's true talent.

There are many receivers who need the ball thrown perfectly for them to catch it, and even then, bringing it in is a 50/50 proposition. Even at his age, there is no reason to believe that this trait has fallen off.

It is not necessarily a purely physical thing; it is a mental part of the game that manifests itself physically.

When you have to make adjustments in the air in order to grab a football that has been thrown over your head or beyond where you thought it would be thrown, your mind has to calculate the difference in the movement and then send that message to your body. Nobody does that better than Beckham.

The Ugly: Inability to separate from defenders during routes

The Ugly of new #NYGiants receiver Odell Beckham is his seemingly inability to seperate from sticky man coverage. pic.twitter.com/oMyyNnaSyr
— Coach Gene Clemons (@geneclemons) June 2, 2026

Father Time waits for nobody, and Beckham is no different. Where he used to be a physical marvel, he will now have to rely on the mental part of the game to get him open against younger, more athletic defensive backs.

When he was with the Ravens two years ago, you could see the lack of separation beginning to develop.

This wasn't evident on double moves, where he still showed the ability to separate, but rather on plays where he simply had to use his athleticism to get beyond the defensive back guarding him. In those instances, he did not create as much separation.

When it comes to that aspect of the game, it doesn't take much to see diminishing returns. A step here and a step there can alter your ability to create windows for the quarterback to throw into against man coverage.

Coach's Corner

If nothing else, Beckham's experience and strengths, assuming they haven't deteriorated, should fit well with Jaxson Dart, who, unlike Manning at the time of Beckham's first stint with the team, is still a young, developing quarterback.

One can only hope that Beckham is not just looking at this as a goodwill gesture by the team or a pre-retirement for him. If he is locked in and can regain the form he had with the Ravens in 2023, that could be very valuable to the Giants.

The OBJ that America fell in love with came to prominence because of his amazing catch—that guy is probably gone. But there is no reason why he can't still be effective in an offense like the Giants' if he's serious about really playing ball.

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