The Giants are sitting pretty for a playoff spot after their 17-6 win over the Lions, a victory capped off by another highlight-reel touchdown catch by Odell Beckham Jr. This one-handed grab wasn’t on the level of his snag against the Cowboys two years ago, but the degree of difficulty was upped by the fact that he used his left hand. Beckham’s a righty.
About a year ago, Kevin Clark (then of the Wall Street Journal) wrote about how Beckham was forcing himself toward ambidexterity:
[H]e started doing as many things as he possibly could left handed. Every day. “Anything I can do with my right hand, I’ve gotta do with my left,” he said. There’s the teeth-brushing—three times a day. There’s the swinging of a baseball bat (He hasn’t been to a batting cage in years, but he practices swinging a bat around his place). He doesn’t play full-scale basketball games anymore, but he has a hoop at his house. He invites friends over to shoot around, all in the name of his lefty experiment. He takes every shot left handed.
It’s not a bad strategy, not when, on its worst days, the Giants’ offensive playbook appears to consist of a Denny’s placemat upon which Ben McAdoo has scribbled “throw it near Odell.” (The offense was better and more well-rounded than that yesterday.)
After the game, Beckham credited his left-handed training routine for the ability to haul in that ball, and cribbed a line from Spider-Man to explain his always working to get better. “God has gifted me with a lot of talent,” Beckham said, “but with that comes a lot of responsibility.”