SBF: Odell's One-Hand Catch

Welcome to another post about the SBF (Science Behind Football)! In todays addition, we would like to really break down Odell Beckham Jr. and his obsession with that one-handed catch.

Remember back on November 24th, 2014, when Odell literally broke the internet with his incredible one handed catch. IT'd be near impossible to do THAT again, yet Odell is well-known for his ability to catch a football with one hand. Not many coaches agree with his notion, but hey, if a really, really bad referee doesn't call a PI, you gotta learn to work around an intentional grab or hold and catch the ball with one hand.

At 5'11", Odell makes his ridiculous catches by using his large 10 inch hand. To give a comparison, his hand is bigger than Cowboy's receiver Dez Bryant, and he's TALLER than him by THREE inches.

On Eli Manning's usual 45 mph throw, Odell window to catch the ball is about 0.16 seconds, approximately how long it takes for a football to rotate fully at this speed. With some calculations, Odell must jump at around four tenths of a second before the ball arrives, making timing important not only for his one-handed catches. Eli typically throws at around 8 feet to Odell, so Odell gotta jump up, and lean backward at 11 mph (for his famous one-handed catch). With a little help of physics and Newton's third law, Odell clenches his hands when the football reaches them within 8 milliseconds.

On top of THAT, he must apply 20 pounds of force to the ball and stop the 45 mph pigskin in 2 tenths of a second in order for him to catch it at the right time. Sounds like a lot's going on in something that merely takes a matter of seconds.