ESPN: OBJ: Felt disrespected by Giants, mulled retiring

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"I felt disrespected, because I felt like I was a main reason at keeping that brand alive. They were getting prime-time games, still, as a 5-and-11 team. Why? Because people want to see the show. You want to see me play. That's just real rap. I'm not sitting here like, 'It's because of me.' But let's just be real. That's why we're still getting prime-time games. I felt disrespected they weren't even man enough to even sit me down to my face and tell me what's going on."

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"But then to be called like that and then be texted by your coach and be like, 'Oh, yeah, I heard the news.' Yeah, you heard the news? It happened because of you. The reason I'm gone is because of you. It was just tough because of the way I initially felt. On the other side of it, I was excited about a new start because I had been ... honestly, I had been praying to God the season before this season for a change."

Beckham said there were times last season when he was pacing up and down the sideline asking, "Why did you sign me?" He signed a then-record five-year extension potentially worth $95 million before the season.

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The intense scrutiny sometimes got the best of Beckham. Football was becoming a business, not a game. That was what he was hoping to avoid, he said, but it forced him to contemplate retirement and think about how life would be different had he chosen a different sport.

"All the time, bro. Literally every day. Especially on those days I'm down," Beckham said. "I could've done any sport in the world. Not many people know, but I used to talk to my momma and I'd be like, 'Ma, if I was done doing this now, would you still be proud of me?' And this was a couple of years ago, about two or three years ago."

Beckham was setting records two or three years ago. He had the most receptions and second-most receiving yards in NFL history through 50 career games.

Still, it was a roller coaster he contemplated disembarking.

"Twenty-four years old. Just off it. To love something so much to a place where it is my everything, and to watch it be tainted, or all kinds of things be in the middle of it. Like, it hurt me to my soul," Beckham said. "It be like loving someone and putting them on such a level to where life is about them and you love that person through anything. Through the good, the bad. And to watch them do something so heinous and vulgar. Something just so, like, almost unforgivable. You still love them, but it's, like, wow."

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