Giants GM Jerry Reese Stays Silent On Contract Talks With Odell Beckham Jr.

New York Giants general manager Jerry Reese is refusing to reveal details about the team’s negotiations for a new contract with wide receiver Odell Bekcham Jr. 

Jerry Reese John Mara on Odell Beckham Jr.

“I’m not going to talk about contracts,” Reese said Thursday at Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford. “We’re going to keep all of our options open in respect to any contract.”

Reese added that he and Beckham have not yet spoken this offseason, and that he plans to tell the receiver to “be a good teammate” next campaign.

“He’s been on vacation and I’ve been on vacation, so we haven’t talked,” he said.

The Giants reported for training camp on Thursday. Earlier in the day, co-owner John Mara said discussions for a new contract with Beckham hadn’t yet begun, but that they would start “at the appropriate time.”

“I don’t think we have a time frame on it,” said Mara. “But we certainly don’t want to see him playing in another uniform.”

Beckham, 24, is set to earn $1.839 million in 2017, and the Giants exercised his fifth-year option for 2018. The wideout, who is entering his fourth season with the team, missed voluntary offseason workouts but returned for mandatory minicamp last season. Beckham reportedly skipped those workouts in the hopes of landing a new contract.

Mara also said he believes Beckham is a “good kid” and pointed to the youngster’s noble deeds off the field. Just last weekend, Beckham coordinated with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to visit a 9-year-old boy in Texas who is battling cancer whose dying wish is to meet the wideout, whom he called his hero.

“Listen, he’s as exciting a player as we have had on this team in my lifetime, and he brings a lot of energy, a lot of big plays to us,” Mara said. “And when you cut through everything else, he actually is a really good kid. He does a lot of wonderful things off the field that people don’t know about. He needs to work on controlling his emotions a little bit more. But when he is on the field, the other teams have to pay attention to him … and he strikes fear into the eyes of the other team. As long as you have that ability, he makes your team better. He just adds a lot to us. We really haven’t had a player like that here for a long time.”

Despite Beckham’s series of well-known incidents of arguing with opponents and officials during games in his three-year career thus far, Mara said he is confident the wideout will behave more maturely.

“I think he’s a work in progress, I think he’s going to mature,” said Mara. “I had a great conversation with him in the spring about that. I think he understands that. But he’s always going to be an emotional player, and we’re going to have to live with, hopefully, an occasional and rare outburst every once in a while because he wants to win so badly. But I think he is going to mature. He’s 24 years old. You weren’t the most mature guy at the age of 24, were you?”

CLEVELAND, OH – NOVEMBER 27: Odell Beckham #13 of the New York Giants avoids a tackle by Derrick Kindred #30 of the Cleveland Browns during the fourth quarter at FirstEnergy Stadium on November 27, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)