Odell Beckham Jr. injures self while celebrating, Giants win anyway

In a game that was uglier than a school lunch from every angle, you’ve got to do something special to stand out. Odell Beckham Jr. did exactly that, injuring himself while — this is true — celebrating a touchdown. Ah, the NFL.

The New York Giants defeated the San Francisco 49ers 30-27 in a game that exhibited both teams’ best and worst attributes … and it turns out that San Francisco’s worst was just a bit nastier than New York’s.

Let’s start with the positive: San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick had his best game of the season, converting drives of 80, 80 and 88 yards into touchdowns. Kaepernick’s second half, in particular, gives hope for 49er fans who have grown accustomed to erratic, powerful-but-wildly-inaccurate throws from their franchise QB. Kaepernick didn’t look in masterful control of the game, and he benefitted from some key drive-perpetuating pass-interference calls, but he nonetheless threw for 262 yards and two touchdowns with no turnovers.

His counterpart, Eli Manning, had a monstrous statistical game, throwing 54 times and connecting a Giants-record 41 times for 441 yards and three touchdowns. The biggest of the game — indeed, the biggest of the Giants’ season — came with just 21 seconds remaining in the game when Manning found Larry Donnell in the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.

“Eli gave me that eye and I knew what that meant,” Donnell said after the game, “so he put it up there and I had to go get it.”

Of course, Manning also fluttered pass after pass into, and out of, 49er hands, and also botched another timeout call late in the game. But this time when he fell down the stairs, he landed on his feet, and as always, seemed as surprised as the rest of us that he won.

The problem for both teams is their defense; both Kaepernick and Manning had little trouble picking apart secondaries. Give San Francisco some credit for outplaying expectations, yes, but the 49ers, still reeling and with only one win on the year, have a long way to go to being able to hang with anything more than a mildly competent team.

“Mildly competent” may as well be the Giants’ motto, but mildly competent is enough to put the team at the top of the otherwise putrid NFC East. With Dallas on a three-game skid without Tony Romo, Philadelphia a mystery from week to week, and Washington being Washington, it’s not too much to expect that the Giants could actually win the doggone division.

To do so, though, they’re going to need Beckham at full strength. Beckham returned to the game late following the hamstring injury he suffered while doing the salsa-dance touchdown celebration, but it’s unclear whether he was intended as a decoy or had healed up. Either way, had the Giants lost this game, Beckham would have been in for a lot more criticism.

Bottom line, though: winning ugly is still winning. In the NFL, that’s what matters.