Odell Beckham Jr. cheered on Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase two short years ago, enjoying every minute as the quarterback-wide receiver duo capped LSU’s 15-0 season by winning the national championship game of the College Football Playoff in New Orleans.
Beckham, a wide receiver for LSU from 2011 to 2013, will face off against those two fellow former Tigers in an NFL game for the first time Sunday, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Beckham’s Los Angeles Rams will welcome Burrow, Chase and all of the Cincinnati Bengals to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, for Super Bowl LVI.
In Beckham’s freshman season, LSU came within a win of perfection, losing to Southeastern Conference rival Alabama in a BCS national title game that was a rematch from the regular season. The Tigers won 10 games each of the next two seasons but didn’t play for the SEC crown or the national title again before Beckham turned pro.
Drafted 12th overall in 2014, he played five seasons for the New York Giants before being traded to the Cleveland Browns. Waived early this past November, Beckham soon after signed with the Rams and is hungry for his own championship – even if it is at the expense of Burrow, the No. 1 draft pick in 2020, and Chase, the No. 5 pick last year.
“They’re born winners, so I always knew that we would see them again,” Beckham said. “I mean never could it be any better than this. But so they got their ring and all that (in college), and it’s like, now it’s our turn to get ours.”