On Sunday, the Miami-Dade Police Department announced Odell Beckham Jr. was kicked off a flight headed from Miami to Los Angeles amid the coveted free agent being recruited across the NFL. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who has stated on multiple occasions that his team is interested in the wideout, was plainly asked whether the incident impacted his team’s interest in Beckham.
“No. It did not,” Jones said Tuesday morning on 105.3 The Fan, per Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports. “His overall team compatibility, his judgement, behavior is not an issue with him. It is with many but not him. We think he’d fit in really good with us.”
Miami police said Beckham didn’t have his seat belt fastened and slipped in and out of consciousness when the crew tried to get him to buckle up, causing the flight to be delayed and eventually requiring everyone on the flight to deboard.
“The flight crew was concerned that a passenger (Mr. Odell Beckham Jr.) as they tried to wake him to fasten his seat belt, he appeared to be coming in and out of consciousness, prior to their departure,” the department said in a statement, via NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero. “Fearing that Mr. Beckham was seriously ill, and that his condition would worsen through the expected five hour flight, the crew called for police and fire rescue.”
The statement goes on to say that Beckham wouldn’t get off the plane until police became involved, at which point he did without incident. Beckham’s lawyer, Daniel Davillier, refuted the claim that Beckham refused to listen to the crew, stating that he was asleep with a blanket over his head before he was told he needed to vacate the plane because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He added that Beckham was dealing with an “overzealous flight attendant” that sought to “prove that he had the authority to have Mr. Beckham removed from the flight.”
Beckham suffered a torn ACL in February’s Super Bowl win with the Rams and has not played or signed with a team in 2022, but is currently considering free agency destinations.
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