After his dangerous antics on the field Sunday -- including a helmet-to-helmet hit on Carolina Panther Josh Norman -- New York Giant Odell Beckham Jr. received a one-game suspension and a barrage of criticism, as many in the press and the public deemed his play reckless and irresponsible.
But don’t count Shaquille O’Neal -- another athlete who knows a thing or two about being picked on by an opposing defense -- as one of Beckham’s detractors. In fact, Shaq – who was roommates with Beckham’s father in college and has known the wide receiver since he was a child -- lauded the suspended Beckham for proving that “he’s not soft.”
“He’s not a troubled kid,” O’Neal told Rich Eisen on the latter’s show on Tuesday. “He’s not a troublemaker, but by any means, he’s not soft. I guess the guy got under his skin. There’s a lot of stuff we did not see like the spitting and the trash talking and the disrespecting. I’m a true believer that sometimes you have to touch people up to let them know that you’re not soft.”
“The play was dangerous, him launching his helmet, but football is a dangerous, violent sport,” he continued. “But I think he showed the world [Sunday] that he’s not soft. It’s my understanding that some derogatory comments were made about his hair … Every now and then you have to touch people up in the nature of the game … You’re hard, I’m harder, I’m coming at you just like you’re coming at me.”
It’s striking how out of touch O’Neal’s tough-guy mentality seems. Given the steady flow of horror stories in the past couple of years regarding the long-term side effects of football’s violence, O’Neal’s call for athletes to “touch people up” if they feel disrespected appears callous and downright uninformed.
Moreover, this eye-for-an-eye attitude toward an intentional hit to the head seems like something from a decade when we weren’t aware of such things as chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Beckham has appealed his suspension, and the decision on whether the one-game ban will be upheld is expected to be announced Wednesday.
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