Odell Beckham Jr. reaffirmed his relationship with the Giants on Monday, showing up for the start of the team's offseason workouts. However, Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis is worried that "chaos" has clouded the star wide receiver's career because Beckham "has removed God from his life."
In appearances Monday on Fox Sports 1, for which he is a regular contributor, Lewis claimed to have long provided counsel to Beckham, who Lewis said reached out to him "first." Heading into the final season of his rookie deal, Beckham has made it clear he wants a massive new contract, but the Giants have been rumored to be shopping him around the league, following a string of on- and off-field episodes, including the recent appearance of a concerning video and a $15 million lawsuit by a man who says he was badly beaten by other men at the receiver's home.
Asked by Colin Cowherd what he would say to Beckham if the former Raven "could sit down for 10 minutes" with him, Lewis replied, "Where there's no God, there's chaos."
"Odell has removed God from his life," Lewis continued. "This is a kid that grew up under the covenant of who God really is, and everything that he's doing, he's crying out for help."
Referring to a "commitment he started to make," Lewis said that he and Beckham "started to make those phone calls, we started to have conversation."
"And then I started to see, he started to distance himself a little more, a little more and a little more," Lewis added. "Just listen to me, Colin: I don't care about religion. I'm talking about a foundation. When your foundation is disturbed, when everything you're doing is the opposite of what's got you to this place, then you're making your own bed hard."
An attorney for Beckham described the lawsuit last month as "full of falsehoods and misinformation" and "a shakedown attempt." However, shortly after that news and the emergence of the video, in which the three-time Pro Bowler appeared to have a brown cigarette while a nearby woman appeared to have a white powdery substance, Giants owner John Mara said he was "tired of answering questions about Odell's behavior."
Mara added that nobody on his team's roster was "untouchable," and it wasn't long before Beckham was being linked to the Rams, who ended up trading with the Patriots for wide receiver Brandin Cooks. On FS1's "Speak for Yourself" Monday, Cowherd said of Beckham, who is coming back from a fractured ankle, "The Rams vetted him, I was told, a week ago and said, 'We're out.' "
"Listen guys, we have a duty and a lot of leaders are not stepping up to that duty," Lewis responded. "Guess why? They want to be popular on social media, but everybody's blogging and nobody's talking about putting God back first."
"All of these people on TV, we're just crucifying people, and disappointed in them," he added, "but our duty is to get on here to help them, to give them a way out."
Lewis, who retired from the NFL in 2012 after helping Baltimore win two Super Bowl titles, told the FS1 hosts: "OBJ reached out to me first and said, 'Big bro, I need you.' And I said, 'I'm here, baby, whatever you need.' And we started to work through these things since his rookie year.
"My why in life will never change. My why I do what I do, because I'm trying to bring more souls back to Christ, that's lost. We're lost!"
Lewis is not the only Hall of Famer and would-be mentor who has expressed disappointment with Beckham. On his own FS1 show, "First Things First," Cris Carter said of the video last month, "I expect better from him. It's enough of the excuses. Time for you to grow up, and stop being a little boy."
"This guy is an unbelievable talent, as talented as anyone that I have ever seen," Carter added. "So I'm disgusted with the whole thing. OBJ? Call me, man. Enough of this stupidness."
On Monday, Lewis appeared to confuse Justin Bieber, who partied with Beckham and other Giants during an infamous excursion to Miami days before a desultory playoff loss to the Packers, with fellow pop star Justin Timberlake, while agreeing with Cowherd's assertion that Beckham's life is "less football today" than it was when he played at LSU.
"I just spoke at this church a couple of days ago — you show me your crowd, I will show you your future," Lewis said. "Man, Justin Timberlake ain't never played no football. I love Justin, but Justin ain't getting out there on that ground like that.
"These guys he's hanging out with, they're in studios all night. They don't have to get up, they don't have a time clock, they don't have no discipline when it comes to athleticism. It's a totally different discipline.
"And when you see this, what Odell is doing to himself — first of all, I'm not just going to call him out, I'm going to call him," Lewis continued. "See there are a lot of people calling him out, disappointed. Nah, nah, nah. What I'm disappointed in is we had an agreement, as men. And the difference of me and everybody else, I don't need nothing or want nothing from you.
"But when you tell me you want me in your life to help you, when you tell me that we will be accountable with reading our Bibles and sharing scriptures, and it don't happen, then you wonder why things around you start to happen."
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