Odell Beckham Jr. believes the referees in Monday night’s Cleveland Browns-New York Jets game treated him unfairly regarding his visor.
Beckham was pulled off the field on the 10th play of Cleveland’s opening drive due to him wearing a visor on his helmet that went against the league’s tinting policy. He was sent off on 3rd-and-goal from the Jets’ five-yard line, and Cleveland threw an incompletion and settled for a field goal to go up 3-0.
Beckham was asked about the matter after the game and shared his thoughts with ESPN’s Lisa Salters.
“All I want is it to be fair around the league,” Beckham told Salters. “If you’re going to tell me to do something, do it for everybody else. You let people stay in the game on ‘Monday Night Football’ with gold visors. Everybody else has tinted visors and you pull me off and it hurts my team and I hurt my team on third-and-goal. You could warn me, do something, but don’t pull me off on third-and-goal. All I want is for it to be fair. I just want to play football.”
Beckham may be talking about New Orleans Saints star running back Alvin Kamara, who has been able to play with the gold visor.
Alvin Kamara brought the iced out diamond grill with the tinted visor.
The flex. pic.twitter.com/Bb5UHSVZyQ
— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) September 10, 2019
First off, if Beckham is knowingly violating a rule, there’s an easy fix: don’t break the rules. If he followed the uniform code he wouldn’t have an issue. Still, it’s not like this rule is for safety or is giving Beckham a competitive advantage. This rule exists solely due to a sponsorship deal by the league. There is no harm in telling Beckham to make the change after the drive.
The referees should be checking for violations such as this one prior to games. And why would they allow him to play nine previous plays — and catch a pass earlier on the drive — but only pull him off the field on that play? That seemed unnecessarily punitive.
Fair or not, violating the league’s uniform policies seems to be Beckham’s thing.
