Odell Beckham Jr. has been a member of the Rams for less than a week. He didn’t arrive in Los Angeles until Friday and put pen to paper on Saturday before suiting up against the 49ers Monday night.
He’s had very little time to get acclimated in his new city, which is why his role was so limited in the Rams’ 31-10 loss to San Francisco. He played 15 of a possible 56 snaps, only running 11 routes and catching two passes for 18 yards.
It was the quiet debut that many expected him to have, although the critics did immediately come out in droves after Matthew Stafford threw an opening-drive interception on a deep shot to Beckham.
Troy Aikman was among them, it seems, questioning Beckham’s impact on Stafford and the Rams offense as a whole. He was on “The Musers” on 1310 AM radio in Dallas on Tuesday morning and said he thinks Stafford might already feel pressure to get the ball to Beckham the way Baker Mayfield supposedly did.
“Matthew Stafford throws an interception on the opening possession because he’s trying to get the ball down to OBJ,” Aikman said, as transcribed by Mark Lane of Texans Wire. “Whether he stopped on the route or not, he’s not going to complete that pass. There’s two defenders back there. But I think Matthew now feels some of the pressure that maybe Baker Mayfield felt of, hey, we got to get this guy involved, or he’s in the game right now because he’s going to take this deep route and I’ve got to find a way to get this ball in his hands because that’s why he’s playing on this play. It’s not good, and it’s not good playing quarterback when you feel pressure to get the ball to one particular player. It just doesn’t work. So, I don’t know. Maybe they can pull themselves out of it and get it going. But that was a beatdown last night.”
Jimmie Ward making an impact early with that INT! 👏#LARvsSF on ESPN/49ers app pic.twitter.com/gRhfLo7ava
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) November 16, 2021
Let’s start by saying Aikman is way off with this take. Beckham ran 11 routes. He was targeted three times, twice on the opening drive – including on the first offensive play when Stafford threw a quick pass to him on a hitch route.
There’s absolutely nothing to suggest Beckham is already demanding the ball or that Stafford feels pressured to target him. Again, he ran ELEVEN routes in the entire game and was targeted three times.
Does Aikman really think that in his first three days with the team, Beckham is demanding touches and more opportunities? Stafford has been spreading the ball around all season, even leaning heavily on Cooper Kupp.
Yet, just because Beckham is now a member of the Rams, Stafford is going to change his entire approach to get him the ball? That’s hard to fathom, especially this early in Beckham’s tenure.
In addition to this being a concern for Aikman, the Hall of Fame quarterback sees “a lot of red flags” with the Rams as a whole. He called Robert Woods one of the five best receivers in the NFL, and “a lot of days when I watch him, he might be the guy I take first with the things that he does,” Aikman added. So he sees the loss of Woods as a major blow, as does everyone else.
Furthermore, he worries about the impact of Beckham and Von Miller on the overall team chemistry because they’re coming in to take snaps away from other players.
He questions whether the Rams have gone too far with the recent additions of Beckham and Miller, shaking up the locker room too much at this point in the season.
“I’ve liked a lot of what they’ve done, but the last few moves, I don’t want to say ‘desperation’ because I don’t feel that way. But I definitely got the feeling watching them last night that it has totally shook the chemistry and the foundation and the bedrock of this football team. And that happens,” he said. “You bring in just one player you bring into the locker room, it can change the dynamic of a locker room. Let’s just say you have players who — if you bring in a player, then someone’s not going to play, right? I mean, you’re bringing in a guy and he’s going to play. And then someone then is not going to be playing as much, and they’re not to be too happy. Well, if that player is not going to be playing as much is a popular player in the locker room, or has four or five really close friends, hey, he was doing pretty good. And then that starts trickling around. And then you have that and it creates cliques within. So, that’s what I sensed last night. Maybe they’ve gone a little bit too far.”
The Rams’ last two losses are definitely concerning, but Aikman seems to be hitting the panic button a bit early. They’re 7-3, have a really talented roster and a quarterback who’s more than capable of righting the ship.
They’ll most likely be fine because more often than not, talent wins out in the NFL – and the Rams have plenty of it.
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