Odell Beckham Jr. on Richard Mille watch fuss: 'If it ain't one thing ... it's another'
On Sunday during his debut with the Cleveland Browns, Odell Beckham Jr. played while wearing a pricey watch. It of course caught the attention of social media.
And the NFL.
But Beckham has no plans to stop wearing the timepiece, even though some think it’s crazy that he’d risk damaging a watch that cost as much as a house in some markets.
‘I’ll still be wearing it’
Beckham was rocking a Richard Mille RM 11-03 McLaren, which retails for $191,500. Only 500 were made, and while the face of the watch has stripes of orange, Beckham also got his customized with an orange band to match his uniform.
Lots of players subscribe to the mantra “look good, play good,” and it’s hard to find places for NFL players to do that given that they wear helmets and padding and their uniform.
For some, that means wearing a neck chain. For New Orleans Saints running back Alvin Kamara on Monday night, it meant an “ice tray” in his mouth, diamond-encrusted custom fronts on his teeth.
On Tuesday, Beckham told media, “I’ll still be wearing it” when asked about the watch.
During the game?, he was asked to clarify.
“The same way I wear it every day, at practice, I go here, I go there. I’ve been wearing it. Take a shower with it on. It’s just on me,” Beckham said.
The NFL looked into Beckham wearing the watch, citing a rule prohibiting players from wearing hard objects during games, and Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com reported that the league did speak to the Browns about it.
But Beckham spoke as though he’s fine to continue wearing the timepiece.
“You’ve got to look into the rulebook. It says you can’t wear any hard objects,” he said. “The watch is plastic. But people have knee braces on that are hard and made out of metal and you don’t see them taping it up, no jewelry on, so I’m good.”
‘If it ain’t one thing ... it’s another’
On Monday, Beckham tweeted, “If it ain’t one thing....it’s another...” and acknowledged on Tuesday that it was spurred by the reaction to his wearing the watch during Cleveland’s loss to the Tennessee Titans.
“I’m here to play football,” Beckham said. “I would love for them to talk about football and what I do on the field, if I messed up on the field or if I didn’t do well on the field, talk about my performance. Don’t talk about any extracurricular, that’s just it. If anybody else would’ve worn the watch, or if it was a $20 watch, it wouldn’t have been no problem.”
(This echoes something Beckham said to “GQ” for a story that posted just before training camp — that he’s unfairly criticized for living his life when other NFL players aren’t.)
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“Yeah, that’s just my life,” he said Tuesday. “If I ain’t this, it’s something else. If it wasn’t the watch, it would’ve been the way that I tie my shoes.”
It’s unclear if Beckham has signed a promotional deal with Richard Mille – he’s not currently listed on their “friends and partners” roster on the company website – but given how much publicity the brand has gotten over the past 48 hours, maybe it’s time to make that happen.
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