NFL PRIMTIME FLEX: 'No Father To His Game?'

The feud with Josh Norman against the Carolina Panthers last season.

The feud with Norman again against the Washington Redskins this season, including the subsequent tirade and dubious incident with sideline practice equipment.

Constant self-promotion.

Tactless comments in response to media scrutiny.

Key dropped passes in his playoff debut followed by another incident with an inanimate object while exiting a press conference at the Green Bay Packers training facility.

Shirtless dancing.

The club.

The yacht.

It hasn't exactly been a smooth start for Odell Beckham, Jr. in his first three NFL seasons as a New York Giant, but it definitely hasn't been all bad either.  ODB's persona and celebrity has made him look wilder than the Brooklyn Zoo, but his numbers over 43 career games put him right up there with some of the best dirt dogs to ever do it.

However you feel about him as a person, based on football numbers alone, Beckham hasn't done anything to remove himself from the conversation as one of the greatest receivers of all-time.

Stats over first 43 games via pro-football-reference.com

Odell Beckham, Jr. 2013-16

Catches   Yards     Y/C     TDs

    288       4122     14.3     35

Terrell Owens 1996-98
    142        2198     15.5     21

Randy Moss 1998-00

    207         3752     18.0    38

Jerry Rice 1985-87   
    197         3485     17.2    38

Julio Jones 2011-14
    236         3590     15.3    23

Antonio Brown 2010-13
    192         2560      13.3    9

You Remind Me: Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed. . .

Ed Reed is only 34 right? Then why does he look like a 54-year old Frederick Douglass?  They are both Baltimore legends, so maybe this is by design?

'Lethal Enforcers'

Tressel lost Buckeye coaching job, now faces NFL suspension.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is always going on about how they would like to get the pro element away from student-athletes so they can be a truly amateur establishment, but some recent decisions made by National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell appear as though the NCAA has requested aid from the NFL to enforce its own penalties.  The incident in question is the suspensions of former Ohio State University quarterback Terrelle Pryor and head football coach Jim Tressel.  Pryor was supposed to be suspended for the first five games of this current 2011 college football season for breaking NCAA rules (he gave game worn jerseys and other memorabilia in exchange for free tattoos) and Tressel also five games for having knowledge of Pryor's and other players' violations and not reporting it.  Pryor withdrew from Ohio State in the spring amid the turmoil of the situation and Tressel later resigned.  Since Pryor was not eligible for the NFL Draft (he withdrew from OSU past the deadline to enter the draft) he found his way into the NFL through the league's supplemental draft, but under a condition arranged by Goodell that he would face a five game suspension upon entering the league.  Tressel recently took a non-coaching position with the NFL's Indianapolis Colts and is now being suspended for six games due to his conduct at Ohio State.  But the big question here to me is why is the NFL enforcing penalties on behalf of the NCAA when the NCAA insists that it wants to decrease the involvement of the pro element in its sports? 

Coach Cal left UMass on pro-b, no NBA suspension.

Normally if a player has baggage from high school or college heading into a pro sports league, they are affected in that transition by maybe falling lower in a draft than they would have originally been selected or in some cases not getting drated at all.  But to be punished by the pro sports team for something the player did in college is absurd.  Did the New Orleans Saints suspend Reggie Bush when it was discovered that the Bush family received impermissable benefits from an agent during his time at the University of Southern California; a violation that subsequently led to USC being placed on four years probation?  Did the New Jersey Nets punish basketball coach John Calipari when the University of Massachusetts was forced to vacate wins when it was discovered Marcus Camby had been receiving impropers under Coach Cal's watch in Amherst? No and no.  The NCAA is becoming more hypocritical with each passing year and is losing a large portion of its fans in the process.  The problem is that student-athletes at big schools are really just buying their time before they can become pro athletes so they can get paid.  There is really no pride taken in being a student at the university, so as a result there is almost no remorse in accepting something that you know if caught will damage the reputation of that university.  Nonetheless , NCAA rules are NCAA rules and not pro rules.  Blurring the lines between the two only adds gas to the fire that college sports has been trying its damndest to quelch for decades now, and given the severity of its current state, will continue to blaze for decades to come.

Iron Man vs. Gunslinger

Everyone is talking about the Brett Favre streak but I ask just how impressive is it? A WCVB Boston poll asked if Favre's consecutive games started streak was more impressive than Cal Ripken, Jr.'s consecutive games played streak and an overwhelming 82% of fans said that Ripken's streak was more impressive. I think that many casual fans would favor Cal because, overall, he was a very likeable guy. Favre has gotten under our skin over the past four years due to his waffling about whether or not he was going to play or retire. But lets put this streak into perspective by asking two questions: (1) What are the chances of the record ever being broken and (2) How does it compare to other consecutive games played streaks? 297 consecutive starts is impressive and great but when I look at records in the sports world I don't see this record as one that will never be broken and the main reason why is that Peyton Manning has started 205 consecutive games. Peyton is 34 and if he starts for five more years and nine games, he will pass Favre (and that is assuming the league doesn't go to an 18 game schedule and there is no lockout of games entirely). That doesn't seem very unlikely considering that of any NFL quarterback of this generation, Peyton Manning's jersey seems to stay the cleanest at the end of games. The guy never gets hit and he doesn't scramble out of the pocket to buy time. He is a quick release guy; a guy that watches film and studies the defense and makes quick decisions, not someone like Favre, a certified gunslinger who could turn a broken play into a big play by moving out of the pocket and often taking a brutal hit. Manning is the picture of stability and as long as he decides he wants to continue playing the game I strongly believe the record will eventually be his.

Ripken played in a MLB record 2,632 consecutive games. The player that had the best chance of catching him was Miguel Tejada, who had a streak of 1,152 before his wrist was broken by a pitch in 2007. The current player with the longest consecutive games played streak is Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp. His streak is at 204. In today's game, it is not realistic to think anyone will even come close to Cal's record because managers give players days off all the time whether they want them or not. Also, there are so many games played during the season that sometimes it makes sense to have a guy sit a game or two against a bad team to have him fresh for an upcoming series against a team you might be battling with in the standings. I don't ever see anyone in today's game approaching what Tejada did, and he didn't even make it to half the games played that Ripken did.  Favre's record is most impressive when you look at it like this. Since Ripken played in a 162 game season and Favre played in a 16 game season, lets round the season to 160 games and divide Ripken's games played by 10, in order to even the playing field. So Ripken, on a scale of a 16 game season would've had around 263 consecutive games played to Favre's 297. That's a 30 game advantage for Brett. Add in the fact that he played in a far more physically demanding sport and #4 does deserve all the attention. In my opinion, Favre was a throwback to the sport we will never see the likes of again, a true warrior. But his record appears to be reachable and therefore I would focus more on other attributes and great things he brought to the table more than his consecutive games played streak.