“I cheated myself as a man”: Odell Beckham Jr. opens up on personal struggles and PED suspension fallout

Odell Beckham Jr. has shocked NFL fans with a potentially career-defining development, and it is not good.

On Tuesday's episode of The Pivot Podcast, the multiple-time Pro Bowl wide receiver revealed that he had been suspended for six games after failing a drug test during the 2024 season when he was a Miami Dolphin, making him ineligible to play until Week 12.

He expressed remorse for the infraction, saying (from 49:45 in the video below):

“I cheated myself as a man, as a father, as a son, a brother. I cheated myself in ways that were hard to forgive myself for. Whether you're doing things you shouldn't do, you just know, like, I'm cheating myself, but like I've never cheated the system. It's hard for me to come back and play football. I have to come out and deal with it.”

He also provided details about the situation:

“While I was in Miami, hearing that you get charged and someone says you failed for PEDs, which - I've been in a program. I'm in a program because I didn't tell them I was in Arizona and I was going to Vegas for one night and now I'm in Vegas, and you want to come take a drug test, and I'm not here and then all of a sudden - it's kind of a crazy thing.”

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Odell Beckham Jr. discusses former Jarvis Landry's influence on career

In the same podcast appearance, Odell Beckham Jr. shared his thoughts on former teammate Jarvis Landry, whom he said "changed my life forever" during their time at LSU (from 10:06):

"He showed me what greatness was. I had plenty of people. We were in the car on the way (with safety) Tyrann Mathieu. He showed me greatness, what we was chasing, a level of, like, you have this talent, but like, I'm talking two steps above that."

He also recalled an epiphany he had while he and Landry were attending a corps meeting (from 12:03):

"I'll never forget (LSU wide receivers coach Adam) Henry, we were sitting in the room. It's like me, Jarvis, thinking about maybe a few other people. I was like, I fear the day that they change the game that I love into a business and not the game that I love."

Beckham would reunite with Landry at the Cleveland Browns in 2019. He was released in the middle of the 2021 season and joined the Los Angeles Rams not long afterward, eventually winning Super Bowl LVI with them.