Back during the quiet days of late July, Giants wideout Odell Beckham caused a stir with his public jabs against Josh Norman, saying that the Redskins cornerback stayed inside the NFC East to simply remain "relevant."
After the two engaged in a penalty-fueled clash last December when Norman was with the Panthers, Beckham went on to call the defender's defection to Washington a "smart business move" that ensured the rivalry would rage on.
Norman largely ignored Beckham's words at the time -- telling NFL Network, "I don't really care to be honest" -- but he didn't hold back on the wideout in a forthcoming book on last year's Carolina juggernaut.
"He catches one stupid little ball, and everybody in New York (loves) this guy," Norman said of Beckham in "Panthers Rising" by Scott Fowler of The Charlotte Observer.
"I'll be honest. I don't care for the guy at all," Norman said. "Now don't get me wrong, he's a good player or whatever, but he's not what he thinks he is. If you hit guys like that, if you completely jam them and shake them up, they can't relate to that. So they start making excuses like, 'Oh, he touched me.' They don't know how to respond because they never got hit like that. So me, every time I see him, I'm going to hit him in the mouth. I don't care. Until he stops crying and b----ing."
Beckham has gone after Norman more than once, targeting him in March with a subtweet that read: "That boy should thank me for all I've done for you!!!"
Per Fowler, "this made Norman seethe when we talked for this book."
"He's yapping over there," Norman said of Beckham. "And (Beckham doesn't) even sound like he's making any sense. He just went (in the draft) in the first round and everything is handed to him. ... So all that went to his big old head, and for some odd reason he thinks he's somebody that he's not."
All of this serves as a stiff reminder of how desperately we need the regular season to begin, finally wiping away these frivolous encounters that soil the modern-day NFL offseason.
No, it isn't just Beckham vs. Norman on the field, but both players tangled in an odious web of garbled tweets and televised quips low on substance.
While Lena Dunham might enjoy Norman's latest arrow in this feud, we're not above begging, at this stage, for both players to finally settle their differences on the field.
