Giants tight end Travis Beckum said he's gained 20 pounds and now weighs 242 pounds, which is the biggest he's been in his NFL career.Nobody goes into a Weight Watchers meeting saying they’re thankful to have put on 20 pounds.
Luckily for Travis Beckum, he was making such a statement in the Giants' locker room, not a church basement.
“It’s really hard for me to gain weight, so I’m actually really excited about this,” the fourth-year tight end said today during a break at the team’s minicamp. “I’m going to take what I can get.”
Beckum, who had only one impact play last season in the form of a 67-yard touchdown against the Green Bay Packers, is up to 242 pounds, his highest figure since before his rookie season and a weight he reached recently by chowing down on “candy, fried foods, I always go out to eat, so whether it be a double cheeseburger with (Big) Mac sauce from McDonald’s … Sometimes it’s not necessarily the best of foods, but it’s one of those things. Your body just feels so much better.”
I had one person ask me on Twitter if it was a good idea for a player coming back from a torn ACL to be adding 20 pounds. (Beckum was 222 post-surgery, 232 at the end of last season) I have no clue for sure, but I would think he did all of this in consultation with the training staff.
Beckum, as a "move" tight end who also lines up in the slot, is obviously trying to improve upon his ability to move some defenders around and also to create space in traffic. And he's pleased with the weight gain, which is kind of coincidental seeing as how there was some recent grumbling about fellow tight end Martellus Bennett adding what position coach Mike Pope felt was too much weight.
“Yeah, he’s a big boy,” Beckum said of Bennett. “Martellus has a lot more room in his body that he can play around with that weight. He’s like 6-12 (actually 6-6).”
Anyway, back to Beckum and his knee, which he said feels fine today after on Tuesday running on it for the first time since his surgery.
“I kind of did some type of jogging in place today and what I felt (Tuesday) I don’t feel today so I guess that’s a good sign,” he said, adding this when asked if he felt some discomfort while running: “Not necessarily discomfort, just a feeling I hadn’t felt in a while. Kind of weird just because of the whole patella situation*. I kind of felt something on my patella, right where my scar was.
“Today I didn’t feel that, so I’m assuming it’s just breaking up of the scar tissue but my knee feels great.”
*The "patella situation" to which he's referring is the piece of the tendon they took to make the graft for the new ACL.
Beckum isn’t sure when he’ll run again. He’ll continue his rehab over the coming weeks but wants to make sure he doesn’t do too much. He remains hopeful he’ll be ready for opening day, though there’s still a chance he’ll remain on the physically-unable-to-perform list through the first six weeks-plus.
Obviously, that’s a better prognosis than the one facing Jake Ballard.
"I figured it was for a roster spot," Beckum said of the decision to waive Ballard. "But we have 90 now. (That's) plenty. That's just the nature of the business. A lot of them aren't going to make the team. I'm assuming they did it for a roster spot."
They did. But they lost Ballard in the process.
“We’re going to be fine because Coach Pope does a great job of telling us what we need to do and what we don’t need to do,” Beckum said. “And Coach (Kevin) Gilbride does a good job of implementing the tight end in this offense. Obviously, it’s a big loss with Jake. He wasn’t going to be able to play this year but that’s just the nature of the business.”
Mike Garafolo: mgarafolo@starledger.com