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Odell Beckham Jr. was supposed to be better than this.
He promised to be better than this.
More maturity, he vowed. Less drama, he insisted.
And yet there was a night before, before a national TV audience and a full house at MetLife Stadium, curiously walking off to the Giants locker room as his team trailed the Eagles, 24-6, with two seconds remaining on the clock before halftime and the Giants with the possession of the ball for one more play.
As far as "bad looks" goes, this was pretty close to textbook – especially on the heels of that controversial ESPN interview that resembled a "Saturday Night Live" skit with Lil Wayne sitting nodding as his "yes" man.
Over the years, Beckham Exit Stage Left after the Giants had the finishing touches on their minds 34-13 loss to the Eagles sounded a flimsy trifle.
"He had an … an IV … just dehydrated again [and] he went back to the locker room, "Giants coach Pat Shurmur said.
If you were a conspiracy theorist, you were almost waiting for that, "Yeah, that's the ticket" from the SNL skit starring Jon Lovitz portraying a pathological liar.
"Some guys' bodies dehydrate quicker than others, so we've got to keep looking for ways to make sure it stays hydrated, '' Shurmur said.
"I was cramping … so I was trying to get an IV," Beckham said after the game. "Because the halftime break is really like five, 10 minutes [it’s actually 12 minutes], so if I can use a couple extra seconds to go in there and get an IV and be able to come back … that's really all it was.
Except that it felt like it was more that. More than we were being told after the game.
The Giants, after all, are so sick and tired of the extracurricular drama that has engulfed this lost 1-5 season of theirs, the last thing they wanted to be more Beckham drama. Was Shurmur protecting Beckham? We can never know.
Shurmur, mild-mannered as NFL head coaches go, was as agitated after the game as he's been all season.
Then there was another Beckham rant in the second half when he head-butted a cooling fan on the sideline Giants, eventually having to be cooled down by his teammate rookie Saquon Barkley.
The moment was reminiscent of Beckham's tussle with that kicking net (which he lost in a TKO with the net banging him in the head). These are things Beckham has talked about curbing, channeling his emotions into a more productive way.
"I did not see that, so … he can not do that … he should not do that," Shurmur said.
"I was just trying to get myself going," Beckham said, explaining his latest sideline histrionics. "I felt like some of those plays after I was getting my hands on my best stuff. I was just trying to get myself fired up, and I did not help myself. "
Beckham, who finished the game with six catches for a harmless 44 yards on 10 targets (music to the Eagles 'ears), was hardly the only culprit in the Giants' dismal loss. There was plenty of blame to go around on this night.
But if was Beckham's way of "galvanizing" his team, it's one of the most unorthodox displays of leadership in the history of leaders.
He left the field just after Eagles kicker Jake Elliott had missed a 54-yard field goal, which gave the Giants the ball at the Philadelphia 44-yard line with two seconds remaining before halftime.
Trailing by 18 points with their slipping away season, the Giants were not going to kneel on the ball and run the clock out. Some sort of Hail Mary is playing.
Maybe a receiver comes down with the ball or maybe the Giants draw a pass interference penalty before the goal line and they can steal three or seven points before halftime.
The problem was: The one player with the highest vertical leap and best chance to make an acrobatic catch that the Giants needed on the field.
Could Beckham, who did not show any signs of laboring as he walked to the locker room, have stayed on the field for that final play? It sure looked like it.
At the time, he had just two catches for 12 yards on four targets. Was he angry and frustrated that he did not have chances in that first half? We're left to our conclusions on that – just like we are curious about premature halftime exit.
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