Odell Beckham Jr. says he was fined $18,000 for wearing Craig Sager-inspired cleats for charity

New York Giants star receiver Odell Beckham Jr. wore custom-made, colorful cleats Sunday to honor broadcaster Craig Sager, who died last week after a long battle with cancer. The idea was to auction them off after the game to raise money for cancer research.

The NFL’s dress code states that teams must designate a color scheme that includes three different colors for cleats. But three colors clearly aren’t enough when trying to pay tribute to Sager:

(Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press)

(Chris Pizzello / Invision)

(Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)

(Ronald Martinez)

(David Banks / Associated Press)

Beckham said Wednesday that he was fined $18,000 by the league for wearing the cleats during the Giants’ 17-6 win over the Detroit Lions. He made the claim in a response to an Instagram post by Washington’s DeSean Jackson, who was complaining about getting fined for his own cleats last weekend.

“I got fined 18k for Craig Sager cleats that were auction off the cleats to the highest bidder and donating the proceeds to his cancer research,” Beckham wrote. “18k like it's nothin to them, no warning to take them off or anything , noTHING!”

According to NJ.com, Beckham has been fined $108,926 this season by the NFL but not for any prior dress code violations. Fines for uniform violations usually aren’t made public by the league.

Earlier this week, after Dallas Cowboys star Ezekiel Elliott was not fined for jumping into an oversized Salvation Army pot while celebrating a touchdown, Beckham commented:

"There's double standards everywhere. It's just how life is. I'm absolutely positive if I would've done that, I would've been fined. It's whatever. It's nothing against Zeke. Zeke is my boy. I have a Zeke jersey right there, so there's no problems with anything like that. You set rules and limitations, but you don't follow them."

The NFL allowed players to wear customized cleats to be auctioned off for charity during games on Week 13, which they dubbed #MyCauseMyCleats. Beckham and teammate Victor Cruz were not fined by the league for wearing patriotic-themed cleats in honor of 9/11 during Week 1.

Beckham has told reporters he has something special planned for the Giants’ game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night. ESPN tweeted a photo of Beckham’s Christmas-themed cleats — which feature grass from his high school field — earlier in the day.

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii

UPDATES:

10:05 a.m.: This article was updated with a photo of the cleats Beckham plans to wear Thursday night.

This article was originally published at 7:40 a.m.