Odell Beckham Jr. may be the NFL's best-paid receiver, but he wants more. Beckham hasn't scored a touchdown in four games in the Giants' 1-3 start, and in Sunday's 33-18 loss to the Saints he caught seven passes for 60 yards. Beckham sat down with ESPN's Josina Anderson in an interview alongside Lil Wayne that will air Sunday to talk about the Giants' early struggles, and the star receiver tried to diagnose some of the team's problems.

Among those problems, according to Beckham, is a lack of passion. Beckham compared it to the college game, saying that the NFL is full of adults, rather than kids going to school together.

It's a different place. The energy isn't like where I say we come from. It isn't that savage mentality. It's partly the NFL. It's different than college. When we left practice in college, we were going to eat University Seafood or Canes. We're going to chill in the room. We chill together.

When everybody leaves (in the NFL), they've got a family, they've got a wife, they've got kids to go home to. I don't have that. So I try to build that relationship with my teammates because I want to know who am I going to war with every day. When the heat is on, who is this person outside of just being at work and saying what's up?

Beckham is 25, so he's on the younger end of the spectrum age-wise for the Giants. He added that: "A lot of it has to do with the energy we have that we don't bring every single day. You know me: I'm a passionate, energetic person. I always have to have that. If I don't, it's going to be a problem for me. Playing with some heart, we need to play with some heart."

Beckham's passion is well-documented, as are his diva-esque exploits. He's in the news frequently for his outbursts, from fights with kicking nets to punching a hole in the wall at Lambeau Field after losing to the Packers in the postseason. Off the field, he's been criticized for the infamous boat incident in which he and several teammates flew to Miami to hang out with Justin Bieber and took a picture on a boat leading into that very same playoff game against Green Bay. The last season and a quarter has been full of frustration for Beckham, after he missed nearly all of last year with a fractured ankle. This year presents a new set of frustrations, with some of them apparently involving the new offense that new coach Pat Shurmur is incorporating.

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"How come we can't throw the ball for more than 20 yards?" Beckham asked Anderson. "How come we don't attempt or try to throw the ball for more than 20 yards? Those are questions we have to figure out. For now, I would say it's our heart, our energy, it's what we bring when we line up before the game. All of that. It counts."

Beckham has 31 receptions on 45 targets this year, but his 10.7 yards per catch is on pace for a career-low. His average target distance is 10.2 yards, 57th in the NFL, according to Player Profiler.

Shurmur downplayed Beckham's criticism of the Giants' heart. "Our team has a heck of a lot of heart and plays with energy," he said, according to SNY's Ralph Vacchiano. "These guys have a lot of heart - including Odell - and a lot of want-to."

When he was asked if Beckham would be disciplined, Shurmur simply replied "for what?" according to Vacchiano, adding that the media should get confirmation from Beckham on what he means.

As for not getting the ball downfield, Shurmur doesn't buy the narrative.

"That's a false narrative that we weren't trying to throw the ball down the field. That's a false narrative, and if for some reason, they legislate against it, we have to check the ball down, keep the chains moving. And as I acknowledged, maybe it's better to just run the ball a little bit more. I think it's important to throw the ball down the field, and we try to and we do it more than that narrative suggests," Shurmur told Giants.com, via 247 Sports.

Beckham won't be a free agent until 2024 after signing a five-year, $90 million contract extension this offseason. For the Giants, the issue might not be that they won't go vertical -- but that they can't. Eli Manning is 37 years old, and although his completion percentage is at a career-high 74.2 percent in Shurmur's offense, his yards per completion are at a career-low 9.4. Manning is recovering from a rough 2017 campaign, but he still has just four touchdowns in four games in an NFL that's begging quarterbacks to put up ridiculous numbers.

The Giants' next matchup will be on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers, who are coming off a bye week. Beckham will be up against a secondary that includes James Bradberry and standout corner rookie Donte Jackson, another LSU alum.