EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Odell Beckham Jr. is collecting superlatives as quickly as he's piling up touchdowns. His one-handed catch against the Dallas Cowboys was hailed in some circles as the best ever. He's a late entrant into the rookie of the year race. He's breaking records. He's having dinner with LeBron James. He's trying out for the new "Avengers" movie.
(All right, yeah, I made up that last one. But how surprised would you have been, really?)
The thing is, while we all sit here dazzled every week by what the New York Giants' rookie wide receiver is doing, it turns out he's just doing what he was told.
"I set expectations as high as possible," Beckham said after catching a ho-hum 12 passes for 143 yards and three touchdowns Sunday in the Giants' 24-13 victory against Washington. "Back in Week 5, when I played my first game, Antrel [Rolle] came up to me and said, 'Don't forget, you still owe me 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns.'"
It's entirely possible that Rolle was kidding -- a veteran team captain just trying to motivate a rookie who'd missed the first four games of his career with a hamstring injury. Asking a guy who'd never played in the league before to run up 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns in three-quarters of a season is a bit much.
Unless that particular guy is a Marvel superhero.
"Nothing this guy does amazes me," Rolle said Sunday afternoon.
With two games left in the season, Beckham has a Giants rookie record 972 yards to go with nine touchdown catches. A little quick math indicates that he needs only to average 14 yards and half a touchdown per game the rest of the way to complete the homework assignment Rolle gave him in October. Since Beckham has had 90 or more yards in each of his past seven games -- and 100 or more in five of those -- it's difficult not to like his chances.
"The young man is having outstanding success," Giants coach Tom Coughlin said. "He's a very good football player. He has the ability to go the distance any time he gets it, whether as a punt returner or as a receiver. He can run the football, he can throw the football, so we've tried to create a lot of situations for him. He has the talent to exploit the defense in a lot of different ways."
For Coughlin, that's straight-up gushing. See, everybody in the world saw THE CATCH against the Cowboys three weeks ago. But what those of us who are watching him every week see is consistent brilliance, snap-to-snap. Beckham does spectacular things in games and practices. He's a sizzling ball of energy who'll catch your eye with touchdown dances and bark right back at defenders who are trying to get in his head. But he's also a precise route runner with reliable hands and a good head for the game. And if you're a Giants coach, teammate or even a fan, you have to like that he's not too caught up in the brilliant stuff.
"They broke up one pass in the end zone that's going to give me trouble sleeping at night," Beckham said. "Earlier in the game, I was frustrated. There were plays, I think it was a third down where I didn't get both feet in bounds. The throw in the corner of the end zone that I feel I should have caught. There was another one I feel I should have caught. Whenever I get a chance to make a play, I feel it should be made."
And yes, he was down on himself for muffing the punt at the end of the game that put Washington's offense back on the field with seconds left on the clock instead of letting the Giants on the field to kneel on the ball and end the game.
"I was being lackadaisical. Too relaxed," Beckham said. "I went and apologized to our special-teams coach, because that is just not acceptable. There's nothing better than having the offense run on the field in victory formation."
He is surely forgiven, but it says a lot that Beckham is the one reminding us all how young he still is. Sunday was only his 10th game in the NFL, which means that he has room to grow and -- gulp -- get better. If the Giants' near future has another Super Bowl title in it, it's going to be with this young man as its brilliant centerpiece.
"He's the fire of this offense," Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said. "We lost Victor Cruz early in the season, but I can only imagine. I can't wait to see those two guys on the field together."
Beckham gives the Giants license to dream of a big, bright future. And it's not because of one great catch or one great game. It's because of what he's doing every single week, at the highest possible level. The most eye-popping thing about Odell Beckham Jr. right now is that he's making the eye-popping stuff routine.
