Odell Beckham Jr. was at the Giants’ facility in East Rutherford on Monday April 20, working out for the team and taking a physical, sources told ESPN’s Jordan Raanan.
It is the most concrete step toward a return to New York since Beckham met with Giants ownership and new head coach John Harbaugh at the NFL’s annual meetings in Phoenix last month to make his case in person.
No signing is imminent, a source indicated the Giants are likely to wait until after the NFL Draft, which begins Thursday, before making any decision. A reunion remains a possibility.
Beckham is 33 years old and has not played since appearing in nine games for the Miami Dolphins in 2024, where he finished with nine catches and 55 yards.
He has been training this offseason in Arizona and has made no secret of wanting to come back, and specifically of wanting to come back to New York.
Why Would Odell Beckham Jr. Want To Come Back To The Giants?
Beckham was drafted by the Giants in the first round of the 2014 draft — 12th overall, out of LSU.
In the five seasons he spent in New York before being traded to Cleveland, he made three Pro Bowls and had five consecutive 1,000-yard seasons to start his career.
Whatever came after, the Browns, the Rams, the torn ACL in Super Bowl LVI, the Ravens, the Dolphins, none of it produced the same version of what he was in his first years in the NFL.
He has been explicit that he is not just looking for any team. He wants this team. Speaking at the Fanatics Flag Football Classic in Los Angeles last month when asked about potentially playing alongside second-year Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart, Beckham said:
“That sounds great; if that opportunity presents itself, I would love to do that. I would be excited about that. He’s a good dude. He’s young, he likes to dance, I like all that. So he looks like he likes to have fun.”
The personal connection runs deeper than nostalgia. Beckham played under Harbaugh in Baltimore in 2023, catching 35 passes for 565 yards and three touchdowns, his most functional season in years.
The two have maintained their relationship. Harbaugh said at the annual meetings that he and Beckham talk and text regularly.
“We’ve maintained a really great relationship,” Harbaugh said. “He’s one of my very favorite people in the world.”
That relationship is why Harbaugh’s approval matters here, it would take his sign-off to bring Beckham back, and based on everything Harbaugh has said publicly, that approval would not be difficult to obtain.
What Do The Giants Need To Look At?
The workout Monday was the Giants doing their due diligence on a player they cannot fully evaluate from the outside. Beckham is a 33-year-old receiver who has played just nine games in the past two years.
Regardless of how he looked on any training footage or in any social media post, the Giants needed to see him move, route, and compete in a controlled environment before committing to anything.
The physical was the other half of that, making sure his body is structurally sound after multiple significant injuries across his career including the ACL tear in Super Bowl LVI.
GM Joe Schoen has been consistent about where things stand. “If we find a player that’s going to help us, that makes sense for the organization, we’ll continue to pursue,” he said.
“So, he’s on there, if it makes sense. We’ll never not pursue someone that can help.” The operative phrase is “if it makes sense.” The Giants added three receivers in free agency this offseason, re-signing Isaiah Hodgins and bringing in Darnell Mooney and Calvin Austin III, which means Beckham would not be walking into a receiver room that desperately needs him.
He would be walking into one that has been deliberately built and would need to accommodate him.
That calculation becomes clearer after the draft. The Giants hold the 10th pick in the 2026 draft and offensive line has been mentioned as a need, but a receiver is also in play.
Whatever comes out of Thursday’s first round will affect how the Giants view their receiving corps and what role, if any, they would be asking Beckham to fill.
That is the most likely explanation for why no signing is happening this week.
New York Giants Players Say They Want A Reunion
What is unusual about this situation, beyond the circumstances of Beckham himself, is the degree to which current Giants players have pushed for it.
Both Jaxson Dart and Malik Nabers independently informed the Giants organization that they would support adding Beckham, not a passive endorsement but an active communication to the front office.
Nabers went further and made it public, commenting on an OBJ Instagram post with “Let’s play together.”
Nabers and Beckham are connected by LSU, where both played receiver at the highest level. Nabers was selected sixth overall in the 2024 draft; Beckham was drafted 12th overall a decade earlier from the same program.
The lineage is real and so is the relationship. When Nabers tore his ACL in Week 4 of the 2025 season against the Chargers, an injury that ended his second NFL season almost before it started, Beckham, who tore his own ACL in the Super Bowl and knows exactly what that recovery looks like, posted a six-word message, “My heart hurts for ya 1.”
Nabers is expected to be back healthy for 2026. His 2025 season before the injury showed what the Giants are getting back, 16 catches, 251 yards, and two touchdowns in three games, on a pace that would have made him one of the most productive receivers in the league.
He and Dart had already established chemistry before the injury. Adding Beckham beside Nabers as a veteran option, someone who knows what this organization requires, who has a relationship with the head coach, and who could mentor a group of younger receivers while contributing as a rotational piece, is the argument for doing it.
What To Watch For
The draft runs Thursday through Saturday. If the Giants do not select a receiver in a way that changes their calculus, the next logical step after the workout and physical is a contract conversation.
Beckham would not be signing as a No. 1 receiver. He would be signing as a veteran contributor, a slot option, a third target behind Nabers, someone who adds credibility and experience to a room that has Dart as its second-year quarterback.
Carl Banks, the two-time Super Bowl champion who spent his career in a Giants uniform, put it plainly when the reunion first gained momentum:
“I don’t have a problem with his presence in the locker room. He’s no longer the guy who magically sucks the oxygen out of the room.”
The workout happened. The physical happened. The people inside the building want it. What remains is the draft, the numbers, and whether Beckham still looks like a receiver who can help.
