Odell Beckham Jr.’s road from a crumpled figure sprawled out on the Sofi Stadium turf in Los Angeles with a torn ACL in Super Bowl 56 to taking the field for the first time as a Raven was an arduous one, physically and emotionally.
It’s no wonder, then, that the simple act of slipping on a jersey for the start of a mandatory three-day minicamp Tuesday at the team’s facility in Owings Mills struck him as a “meaningful” moment. The 30-year-old former All-Pro missed all of last season with the second major knee injury of his career and was back at the Ravens’ facility for the first time since signing as a free agent in April. It was his first meaningful football action in nearly 500 days.
“I’ve been trying to not think about it because there’s been so many disappointments,” Beckham said. “I’ve been in a good mental head space to where I’ve tried to downplay this, but I think I’ll be excited to put a jersey on and go out and do the thing you’ve done your whole life.”
The workload is not expected to be particularly heavy for Beckham in what are the final offseason practices before Baltimore breaks for the start of training camp in late July.
That was evident once Beckham took the field for the 2 1/2-hour practice. He was in for only a few plays and caught one pass from quarterback Lamar Jackson.
Still, Beckham said he feels good about where he is at in the process of his return to full speed after his injury with the Rams in February 2022.
“It feels good to get out of bed and not feel pain,” he said. “It’s been a long journey this time around.”
While he wouldn’t put a percentage on just how good he feels, Beckham smiled and noted that he’s still “definitely fast.”
“I don’t have a set play amount or number that’s in my head,” Beckham said. “You come here, be a pro, you get your reps, get your work, you talk. You don’t always have to build chemistry by taking reps.”
Likewise, Ravens coach John Harbaugh is in no hurry to push when it comes to Beckham’s return to full speed in what will be the receiver’s ninth year in the NFL.
“He’s going to be full go in terms of health, but I also expect us to ramp up a lot of our guys,” Harbaugh said. “We’re not going to be in a hurry to throw guys out there too much [with] too many reps. … It’ll be a see-as-we-go.”
It is only mid-June, after all. Training camp doesn’t begin for another six weeks, and the Ravens’ first regular-season game isn’t until Sept. 10.
But it will be important for Beckham to come up to speed on a new offense and more importantly to develop chemistry with Jackson. He was one of the main reasons Beckham signed with Baltimore, and in turn Jackson signed his five-year extension with the club a few weeks later.
Though Ravens players will head home for the summer after this week, Beckham said he and Jackson plan to work out together in South Florida before training camp.
“Chemistry is going to develop over time,” Beckham said. “The most important thing is getting ready for the season coming up in September.”
It helps, too, that the Ravens’ new offensive coordinator is Todd Monken, who worked with Beckham in the same role with the Cleveland Browns in 2019. That season, Beckham caught 74 passes for 1,035 yards and four touchdowns.
The language is different now, Beckham said, but conceptually there are similarities that carry over.
His arrival also provides a badly needed jolt to a receiving corps that ranked last in the NFL in yards in three of the past four years and includes largely young and unproven players.
When healthy, Beckham has proved to be one of the league’s better receivers throughout his career. Five times he has topped the 1,000-yard mark, the last of those under Monken. In 2021, his last season on the field, he caught 44 passes for 537 yards and five touchdowns in 14 games for the Browns and Rams.
In that season’s Super Bowl, he was also perhaps on his way to a Most Valuable Player performance with two catches for 52 yards and a touchdown before he went down late in the second quarter. The Rams went on to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals, giving Beckham his first ring, but the experience was a bitter one.
“It’s hard when you get to the pinnacle of success in this sport and feel like it was something that was taken away from you,” Beckham said. “It wasn’t something that was easy to live with. It was very hard to go through that.
“It sucks. I watched plenty of Super Bowls and finally, it was my opportunity and I was so locked in. I could feel it that day when I woke up. … I knew that I was probably going to be the best person on the field that day. I just wanted to have that moment.”
Finally, he was able to have another one Tuesday in what the Ravens hope will be the first of many.
