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Eli Manning has been the New York Giants' starting quarterback for a full decade, and he's not sure he's ever played with a player quite like rookie wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. "He's a little bit different type of receiver than we have had," Manning said on a conference call Monday, the day after Beckham dazzled the football-watching world with his one-handed touchdown catch in the Giants' loss to the Dallas Cowboys. "He has that explosiveness coming out of breaks, that speed. Getting down the field, the catch ability -- he catches the ball very naturally. Obviously, the big hands. He is a pretty rare combination of speed and explosiveness, with also really good route-running and being able to stop on a dime as well out of his breaks." Not bad for a rookie who's made only seven NFL starts. But the catch on national TV turned Beckham into an overnight sensation. And while his teammates watch him make crazy one-handed catches in practice every day, the consensus in the stadium Sunday night was that this was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. But when Manning spoke of his young teammate Monday, he sounded more impressed with his ability to do the nitty-gritty work of a wide receiver at such a young age. "He comes out of his breaks very sharply. He doesn't drift," Manning said. "You're able to see right when he's making that cut and he's coming out of his breaks very smoothly. His breaks are very precise. It's much easier for the quarterback to know where he's going to be out of the break." The Giants had hoped to have Beckham and star veteran wide receiver Victor Cruz on the field together this season. But because Cruz tore the patellar tendon in his knee in Beckham's second game and is out for the season, that has not been possible. But it hasn't stopped Manning from fantasizing about a time next season or in the future when he has Beckham and Cruz to pick from in the passing game. "Yeah, I've thought about it a little bit," Manning said. "It would be a pretty good duo. You throw Rueben Randle and Larry Donnell and Preston Parker in there, a lot of weapons." Giants coach Tom Coughlin said he gets that question -- about what the offense would be like with Cruz and Beckham together -- when he's in network production meetings, and he said he allows himself to imagine when it comes up, though he insists he remains focused on the players he has available to him now. As for that, Beckham did leave Sunday night's game with a back injury. He returned to the game, but he was moving very slowly and deliberately after the game. Coughlin said he was sore Monday and could possibly be limited in practice this week, though the team doesn't seem overly concerned about Beckham potentially missing time.
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