Odell Beckham Jr. will run out at MetLife Stadium on Sunday night in a Giants uniform for the first regular-season game since Dec. 2, 2018. The 33-year-old receiver told Bleacher Report, via an NFL Live appearance Friday, that the moment already hits him before kickoff against the Dallas Cowboys.
“My heart flutters a little bit just thinking about it,” Beckham said. “This is a special place to me.” He signed with New York in June after sitting out the 2025 season and earned a spot on the 53-man roster. Sunday’s 8:20 p.m. ET Sunday Night Football game on NBC is John Harbaugh’s first as Giants head coach and Beckham’s first regular-season snap with the franchise in 2,842 days, according to the New York Post.
Beckham spent his first five NFL seasons in New York after the Giants drafted him 12th overall in 2014. He piled up 390 catches for 5,476 yards and 44 touchdowns in 59 games before the team traded him following the 2018 season. His last game in Big Blue came in a 30-27 overtime win over the Chicago Bears at MetLife, when he caught a touchdown and threw another.
The setting lines up with the catch that made him famous. Beckham’s one-handed touchdown against these same Cowboys on Nov. 23, 2014, still plays on highlight reels. He knows the questions are coming. After Friday’s practice he told reporters he never tried to recreate that play on purpose. It just happened. He also said he has dropped plenty of one-handed balls along the way.
Fans, Noise and Why He Came Back
Beckham pointed first to the people in the stands. “I definitely think a lot of it is the fans,” he said on NFL Live. “The people of New York, I want to give them everything that I’ve got. Let’s bring Giants football back to where I feel like it belongs.” NFL on ESPN posted a clip of the comments on X on Sept. 11.
He expects the building to get loud. “I’m expecting the stadium to have a little bit of noise,” Beckham said. He framed the return as gratitude more than nostalgia. He wants to give the organization and the city everything he has left. That is why he came back after a year away from the league and a short 2024 stint with the Miami Dolphins.
Harbaugh coached Beckham in Baltimore in 2023. The two stayed in touch. Beckham had to earn the roster spot this summer. He caught seven passes for 76 yards in the preseason. The Giants kept five receivers: Malik Nabers, rookie Malachi Fields, Darnell Mooney, Darius Slayton and Beckham, per the team’s initial 53-man roster announcement on Giants.com.
Nabers is listed as questionable after tearing his ACL in Week 4 last season. He practiced in full this week but has said the final call on whether he plays Sunday is his. If Nabers is limited or sits, snaps open for Fields, Mooney and Beckham behind second-year quarterback Jaxson Dart.
Beckham will not be the featured target he was from 2014 to 2018. Harbaugh has described him as a rotational piece who will work in different personnel groups. That role still matters. Dart’s mobility and play-action can create the kind of space Beckham once exploited on slants and deeper routes. Defenses that load up on Nabers or Mooney leave one-on-one chances elsewhere.
The script is neat. Same stadium. Same opponent. Same night window. Beckham is older, coming off time away, and no longer the centerpiece. He keeps saying the fans and the unfinished feeling in New York pulled him back. Sunday night will show how much of the old burst remains when the crowd actually rises.
