Giants star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. is not pleased with the officiating crew that handled yesterdays Giants v. Steelers game, a loss for the Giants halting their six game win streak. OBJ got into several discussions with Terry McAulay’s crew during the game and implied there is some serious bias against he and his teammates. During his postgame presser, picked up by the Sporting News, OBJ said:
I don’t know. I don’t really think we should have this crew anymore when the Giants are playing, with the past history and everything that has gone on.
The McAulay crew were the group of officials that handled the Giants game versus the Panthers last season when OBJ and Josh Norman got into multiple physical altercations.
OBJ is an emotional player and clearly certain players and referees get his blood boiling and cause a reaction. What becomes a problem is when OBJ plays poorly as a result and costs the Giants games. OBJ continued:
You can’t sit there and rely on refs, obviously. Obviously, that is not the case; you can’t sit there and rely on them, if anybody watched the game. It’s not that I’m sitting here saying the refs are the reason we lost the game, but there is plenty of calls in the game and anybody can go watch the film. Anybody. Anybody can see exactly what is going on.
We all know officials can have an outcome on games and the Giants were definitely more heavily penalized team in yesterday’s game but this is smoke. OBJ didn’t play poorly and while the refs may have missed some calls, that didn’t coast the Giants the game.
The Giants are not as good as their record indicates. Their offensive line play is suspect, Eli Manning consistently makes poor throws and bad decisions at inopportune times and the defense (particularly the secondary) is shaky. OBJ is certainly his own worse enemy at times but this one isn’t on the refs. Maybe who OBJ really wants to call out, he can’t.
