Beckham’s appeal of 1-game suspension to be heard Wednesday

“At numerous times during yesterday’s game against the Carolina Panthers, your actions placed a fellow player at unnecessary risk … and clearly did not represent the high standards of sportsmanship expected”, NFL vice president of football operations Merton Hanks wrote to Beckham on Monday.

After everyone had watched the footage over and over of Beckham Jr. running across the field to spear Norman in a helmet-to-helmet hit that should have had him ejected from the game, it was obvious that a suspension would be iminent.

The NFL on Monday suspended Beckham for Sunday’s game at Minnesota for his conduct against Carolina, when he drew three personal-foul penalties. “[That player] took the bat, walked over to Odell like he was gonna hit him in his knees, saying, ‘We’re gonna end your career today”, Sanders recounted Beckham telling him.

His spectacular one-handed catches and entertaining end zone dances after touchdowns have made him a marquee name in American sports and a frequent pitchman for commercial products across multiple media platforms. But according to ESPN, Beckham may have been taunted prior to the game with antigay slurs. And NFL Hall-of-Famer Chris Carter corroborated those claims by apparently speaking with Norman himself..

In 2014, he was fined $10,000 for kicking St. Louis Rams linebacker Alec Ogletree in a brawl-filled game in St. Louis. He also has thrown a punch at a Buffalo Bills player earlier this year, and was upset with what he thought was targeting by the Jacksonville Jaguars this preseason.

Beckham will forfeit $52,529, or one-seventeenth of his 2015 salary of $893,009.

“The most important thing right now is obviously getting ready for Atlanta, because there’s meaning to this game for us”, Rivera said. “You want to make sure we’re playing the exact toughness … but having poise is about not having anything happen after the whistle”. The referees, the coaching staff for both teams and the teammates of Odell and Norman should have prevented this from going as far as it did.

“The vision of Coughlin’s counseling Beckham might have shown fans that his actions were intolerable”, suggests The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir. It’s great for us to be in a game like this – it’s kind of like our first dose of mini-games of what playoff football is going to be about.

Beckham deflected questions about the outrageous hit, but Giants coach Tom Coughlin said his young receiver lost his composure and that he had considered putting Beckham on the bench.

“I hope I pulled that mask off. I pulled back the face of what that dude really is”, said Norman. “But I will defend the quality of the person as long as I’m able”.