Odell Beckham Jr. was involved in some extremely dirty plays vs. the undefeated Carolina Panthers on Sunday. He took cheap shots at cornerback Josh Norman. For example, this helmet to helmet hit was one of them:
Mike Francesa furiously called Beckham’s actions, “self-aggrandizing, nonsensical, just dangerous at times,” and the NFL handed Beckham a one-game suspension on Monday. However, on The Rich Eisen Show on Tuesday, Shaquille O’Neal took an interesting stance and defended Beckham, saying that the wide receiver was just doing what he needed to do to prove he’s not soft.
Around the 5:18 mark, Eisen says, “Let’s talk about the New York Giant who calls you ‘uncle.’ You’ve known Odell forever — since birth — what do you think went down with him this past week?”
Shaq replied:
“I’ve known him all his life. He’s not a troubled kid. He’s not a troublemaker, but by any means, he’s not soft. I guess the guy got under his skin. There’s a lot of stuff we did not see like the spitting and the trash talking and the disrespecting. I’m a true believer that sometimes you have to touch people up to let them know that you’re not soft.
“The play was dangerous, him launching his helmet, but football is a dangerous, violent sport. But I think he showed the world yesterday that he’s not soft. It’s my understanding that some derogatory comments were made about his hair. Just a lot of disrespectful stuff — bats on the sideline, and people talking about people ending people’s career. Maybe it got under his skin, maybe it didn’t…
“Every now and then you have to touch people up in the nature of the game … You’re hard, I’m harder, I’m coming at you just like you’re coming at me.”
Eisen then asked Shaq what the rules are for athletes and trash talking. The four-time NBA champ said everything’s fair game except for two things.
“The unwritten rule is mothers and children, family have to stay out of it. You can’t talk about a person’s mother or their kids. Anything else goes. Wife goes. Girlfriend goes. What you did, how you playing, the money you make, you’re not as good as me, you’re a bum. You can’t talk about people’s mothers. You can’t talk about people’s children.”
Shaq goes on to say that Gary Payton and Karl Malone are his two favorite NBA trash talkers because they were so good at it. He even goes on to talk about how he agrees with Charles Barkley in that the ’96 Bulls would demolish today’s Warriors.
The interview’s a doozy, you can listen to it in full in the video up top.