BALTIMORE — First, Lamar Jackson and Odell Beckham Jr. enjoyed dinner at Prime 112, an upscale steakhouse in Miami Beach. Then they headed a couple of miles up the road to popular nightclub LIV, where a waitress could be seen holding up a lighted sign that read “Welcome Lamar & OBJ.”
The Ravens quarterback and his newest wide receiver were already friends before they bonded over Beckham’s one-year deal reportedly worth $15 million guaranteed that was announced Easter Sunday. Jackson has yet to sign the $32.4 million nonexclusive franchise tag the Ravens placed on him last month five days after he requested to be traded, but that demand, for now, seems to have fizzled like a three-day-old bottle of champagne.
One person who knows Beckham even better than Jackson, though, is Nelson Stewart, his high school coach from Isidore Newman in New Orleans. It’s where Peyton and Eli Manning once starred, their nephew and prized recruit Arch Manning played quarterback this past season and where Beckham once tormented secondaries before going on to LSU and becoming the 12th overall pick of the 2014 draft by the New York Giants.
