Odell Beckham Jr has LA Rams regret as Ravens ace left feeling unfulfilled
Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr insists that winning the Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Rams was a bittersweet feeling because of missing out on becoming Super Bowl MVP.
Beckham, 30, believes that earning the honour was within his grasp following a fine first quarter after catching two passes for 52 yards and scoring the opening touchdown on a 17-yard reception. However, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee before half-time.
It was the second time he had torn the same ACL, after doing so less than 18 months earlier while playing for the Cleveland Browns. Both incidents occurred during games against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Without Beckham, the Rams held on at SoFi Stadium for a 23-20 victory. Despite winning a ring, the veteran still has complicated feelings about the experience.
"It sucks. There's no way around it," Beckham said recently to ESPN. "I didn't get to live out that moment. This is really something I've dedicated my entire life to this game and this sport, and I just wanted to have that moment."
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He added: "It's hard when you get to the pinnacle of success in this sport, and you feel it was taken away from you. It wasn't something that was easy to live with."
The 2022 season saw him rehabilitating the knee after leaving LA as a champion and a free agent at the end of his contract. After not signing for another team, Beckham agreed to a one-year contract with the Ravens this offseason.
Beckham was playing well before getting injured in the Super Bowl"I'm excited, but I'm also very determined and hungry," the receiver said about the opportunity of completing this latest comeback. "So through the smiles, there's still this, 'I really want this badly.' I'm ready to be great, ready to be excellent again."
"The doubts are for whoever has them to have them, but it's not what enters my mind and my body. I know what I can do.
"If you can play, you can play," he added. "It's more of a mindset, and that might just be me trying to not get old, but that's just how I feel.
"I'm not worried about coming back from this because I've come back before, and now I'm way past the mental part of, 'Am I going to be alright?' At the end of the day, we can write all the stories in the world, but it all comes down to what you do on the field during the season."
Beckham will hope to help Baltimore back to the Super Bowl for the first time in over a decade since their 2012 win over the San Francisco 49ers. Since then, they have not made it past the divisional round.
However, with quarterback Lamar Jackson committing to an extension this offseason, they are among those teams with an outside shot of contending in this upcoming NFL season.
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