New York Giants LB Jon Beason Defines Resilience in Quest to Return to the Field

New York Giants linebacker Jon Beason is about to enter the ninth NFL season of a career that, over the last four seasons, hasn’t exactly been kind to him physically.

A throwback, blue-collar tough guy who defines what an NFL inside linebacker should be, Beason’s once illustrious career—that saw well-earned accolades from the league and from his peers accumulate almost as rapidly as the voluminous fan mail he receives—has morphed into a four-year stretch that has seen him suffer significant lower body injuries to his Achilles, knee and foot.

Those injuries and the surgeries and the rehabs have tested his resiliency in ways that he may have thought weren’t possible.  

It’s Beason’s desire to win a championship, to prove to himself that the word “can’t” truly doesn’t exist in his vocabulary, and to honor a game that he has been playing since he was a 10-year-old boy growing up in South Florida that drive him to do everything he can to fight back from his injuries.

That will to be competitive has strengthened his determination to complete some unfinished business in his NFL career.  

Full-time

Long before Beason was dubbed “the Beast,” the 30-year-old had another nickname that summarized what he was all about. 

That nickname was “full-time,” a nickname bestowed upon him during his second year of playing organized football as a youth.

He told Bleacher Report that a parent of one of his teammates had made little towels for each player that was embroidered with each player’s helmet, jersey number, initials, team colors and nicknames.

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Beason thought the moniker was fitting. 

“Full-time means you just keep playing, you’re doing everything,” he said. “It gave me an opportunity to affect the game in more ways.”

Affecting the game mattered to Beason because he cared—some might say a little too much—about the outcome. If his team lost, he made it known he wasn’t happy, and he was one of the first people to try to change the team’s misfortunes.

To this day, Beason still has that same demeanor. Despite having paid his dues at the NFL level as a defensive star, if he had his druthers, he would do a lot more, including playing offense and special teams, if it meant helping his team win. 

The Beast

Beason aspires to be a player who is consistent, one who has a positive impact on the game, one who is a leader and one who does things not just on the field, but off the field the right way.

The Giants got a glimpse of what a healthy Beason could do for their defense, which had begun to deteriorate as a unit early in 2013.

Before New York engineered a rare in-season trade with Carolina to acquire Beason for a seventh-round 2014 draft pick, the numbers support the belief that the Giants’ defense had trouble getting out of its own way.

	Before	After
Avg. Rushing Yards / Game	126.4	101.2
Avg. Passing Yards / Game	269.2	204.0
Points / Game	36.0	18.3

Beason was a key factor in helping to change all that. That season, in fact, an estimated 77 percent of his run-game tackles came within five yards or less of the line of scrimmage.

When Beason was lost for the 2014 season, the Giants missed not just his leadership, but also his production, particularly against the run. New York’s run defense, which in 2013 finished 13th in the NFL (109.1 yards per game), sank to 30th in the league (135.1 yards per game) in 2014.

It’s not exactly glamorous work, but it’s something that drives Beason to keep coming back year after year, regardless of the previous year, to do it all again.

“I enjoy the hardhat, bring-your-lunch-pail-to-work mentality of position, of middle linebacker. I like that it’s physically demanding so the pressure is on me to get everybody ready,” he said. “It’s very, very rewarding, fulfilling when you go to work and a lot’s on you and when you do well, everybody else does well.”

The Giants need Beason to be as good if not better than his 2013 form if they are to have any hope of stopping a three-year skid which has not only seen their won-loss record regress, but which also has resulted in three playoff-less seasons.

Can Beason be that player again?

“Yeah. I do think so. Every day that I’m out there practicing, it’s coming back to me,” he said.  

“Physically, I feel good—I’m changing directions, I’m still explosive, and I’m still very fast. If I run past somebody, that makes me happy, not because I’m faster than the guy, but because I’m playing hard.”  

Bent but Not Broken

Unfortunately, Beason has become a victim of his own approach to success.

After starting 64 consecutive games following his selection as the 25th overall pick by Carolina in the 2007 NFL draft, Beason has played in just 24 regular season games since 2011 thanks to assorted lower body injuries, including those to his Achilles, knee, and most recently, his big toe.

Because of those injuries, critics have been unkind with their choice of words for Beason, using such descriptors such as “glass,” “injury-prone” and “washed up.”

“Everyone has their cross to bear, and it’s the person who says ‘Woe is me’ and folds and lets whatever the circumstances overcome them. If you do that, you’re looking at it like this wasn’t supposed to happen, but whatever is going to happen is going to happen and things that are out of your control, that’s the way you’re supposed to approach it.

“I’ve found more motivation, more drive, more reason to do something because of naysayers who say ‘I will not do them,’” he said.

“Not that it’s been easy—but it’s been easy to push myself and always stay the course and continue to strive to be healthy. And then, getting healthy, I know that I can be the player that I want to be.”

Healing is in the Giving

Beason has never been reluctant to take a team on his shoulders and carry them through thick and thin.

Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

However, when injuries started robbing him of precious time on the field, it was a tough pill for him to swallow. 

“When they told me I tore my Achilles, I broke down,” he recalled of his first significant injury as a pro. “[After the surgery] I’m sitting on the couch at my house. My mom is up taking care of me, and I have my foot up. It’s Sunday, 1:00 p.m., and we are getting ready to play the Packers at home.

“I’m watching the clock closely, and I turn the channel on and here comes the broadcast and the team runs out the tunnel and it just crushed me—it hurts even now. It was the realization that it doesn’t matter how great you are, how good you do something. Everything has a season.”

He paused and glanced outside a window. 

“That situation, where you feel like you’ve been robbed of something, is devastating,” he said. “[Carolina was] sold out, 78-80 games in a row, and someone went out there and played in my position and here I am [on injured reserve]."

“It puts things in real perspective that it’s really not for long. It’s a cliché, but it’s the truth. That was the first time that I really realized it’s not about me.”

If there was a silver lining with that injury, it was that Beason discovered that he still had the power to make a difference, albeit behind the scenes.

He first came to that realization when teammate and fellow linebacker Thomas Davis was forced to deal with one of his three ACL injuries around the same time Beason was trying to come back from his Achilles injury. 

To help keep each other’s spirits up, Beason and Davis would challenge each other during their respective comebacks.

“It got to the point where we played against each other. I’m going to get an interception or a sack, or who is going to get to that ball first? We were competitive and we loved it, but we wanted to see each other do well.”

In fact, when Davis tore his ACL a third time and began to have doubts about continuing to play football, it was Beason, dealing with his own health issues, who offered his teammate a frank opinion. 

“That third time he tore it in 23 months, he called me about the MRI and said that it’s torn and that, ‘No one is going to want me,’” Beason recalled. “I just said that, ‘It’s just not time for you.’"

“We have this expression: ‘You still have juice, you still have gas.’ Thomas still had juice in my mind.”

Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images

Beason would also reach out to offer his assistance to linebacker Luke Kuechly, the man who would eventually replace him as “the guy” in Carolina.

He served as a big brother to Kuechly, offering advice and answering questions. By getting that involved, Beason also began to realize that even if he couldn’t contribute on the field, he still had a purpose in the grand scheme of things.  

“I realized that the game is bigger than me, so whatever I have, whatever I can give, I wanted to give that to [Kuechly] to help him,” he said.

“I got a really nice letter from Luke’s dad after his rookie campaign, and it was very heartfelt. It made it all worth it,” Beason recalled. “I wrote a letter back to Luke’s dad and my theme was, ‘The healing was in the giving.’"

“When I was lying there on the couch, and I couldn’t walk or get my foot up, I was watching games. To see him play well made me feel better; it made me feel like I was there and a part of it.”

Super Beast

Beason only knows one way to play the game, and that is go all out on every single play. 

Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports

“You can’t play the style that I want to play, or how I think the game should be played—not for me personally,” he said.

“Before I don’t play like that, I’ll walk away because I’d rather have given it my all for a period of time as opposed to people saying ‘You know what? I remember there was a day when 52 was all over the place and he’s just not quite that guy.’"

“If you’re going to say I’m not quite the guy, that’s fine; I’ll prove you wrong. But if I turn on the tape and I see I’m not the guy, it will be because I physically can’t as opposed to having tried to survive to the next play.”

Still, having seen the game go on without him, Beason understands that if he is injured again, there is a very real chance that his career might be over. 

“I’ve told my family and close friends that I’m not doing it again because I feel like it would just be so consistent that it becomes a sign that I should just walk away,” he said when asked if he would attempt another rehab and comeback if the unthinkable were to happen.

“I’ve done the best that I can with the time that God has permitted me to play this sport, and I know I did it the right way…”

But?

“But,” he began with a smile, “My mind says, ‘What else do you want to do?’”

What he wants very much to do is be a part of a championship team, preferably as an active contributor.

“You develop a passion for your occupation as you go,” he said.

“If I can’t sit down and say that I’m ready to hang it up, then I’ll give it another go. I’m going to do everything I can physically, from a medical standpoint, orthopedic standpoint, to make sure that I am ready to go.

“If the body doesn’t hold up, the body doesn’t hold up," he added. "But mentally, if I’m not at peace with it—which I’m not because I’m still very driven and prideful, and I’m young. I really feel like when I’m healthy, the young kids still can’t keep up with me.”

He forced a smile, trying to hide the struggle of knowing that the possibility of his body not holding up could very well force him to make a decision he would really rather not have to make any time soon.  

“I tell the young guys, 'I’ll be here as long as the Giants will have me,'” he said.

“I’ll try to be the same player, the same person. I know that there will be a time where I will have to step down, whether I’m choosing to or they're asking me to."

"Because of that, I cherish the moment right now.”

Patricia Traina covers the Giants for Inside Football, the Journal Inquirer and Sports Xchange. All quotes and information were obtained firsthand unless otherwise sourced.

Follow @Patricia_Traina.