Well, he finally did it. Michael Strahan retired after 15 long years of football. And he will be missed. Not only was he the best defensive end on the Giants team (and arguably the NFL) but he was the easiest to talk to (most times) and everybody liked him (well, just about). And he stopped the run too. He was truly one of a kind.
Throughout the Giants triumphant playoff run and Super Bowl, it seemed as if there were a lot of heroes. And there certainly were. Eli, Steve Smith, Amani Toomer, all those rookies.....but there was always Strahan. He always got a lot of attention. And he deserved it.
What do most people remember about him? First and foremost, unfortunately I think, is the gap-toothed smile, that gap-toothed smile that became his trademark. And, who knows, given his overall effect on the Giants football team, maybe it was one of his greatest assets.
I’ll bet it helped him be a leader. It made him approachable. Instead of the dour expression you might expect from a man who mixed it up with the biggest, meanest people on the planet, Michael would sport that gap-toothed grin. And all would seem right with the world.
That’s what the Giants will miss most - his leadership. How many people can be elected captain of a team when he’s not even there? Well, that’s what happened with the Giants last year. At the time, I viewed it as an enormous negative. What kind of mixed-up priorities did this team have?
But it turned out to be a harbinger of good things to come. The Giants were saying, “HE’S OUR LEADER” loud and clear. Not Eli, not Coughlin, not Amani. It’s Michael Strahan and we don’t care that he’s not here. Who knows? Maybe that’s what ultimately brought him back for that one last triumphant run to glory.
In preparation for this column, I looked at Strahan’s career stats, and, while laudable, primarily for their consistency, stats don’t tell his story. Stats are a more reliable indicator for a quarterback. But for a defensive end, who can be double-teamed or even triple-teamed, you would have to examine the performance of every other defensive lineman and linebacker to really gauge his overall significance.
There was one best way of gauging his importance. You just had to watch him. He had one of those classic defensive end bodies. Listed at 6’5” and 255, it’s hard to believe he carried that much bulk. He was always so fast. And quick. (There is a big difference there)..And he played with abandon.
All the great defensive linemen had speed and quickness. And power, of course. But the primary asset is speed. You can make a guy powerful, and you can even improve a guy’s speed and quickness through training, but the gift from God is really the natural speed.
Strahan always had it. In fact, sometimes I thought he tried to rely on his speed too much. There were too many games when I thought he’d just run himself out of a play, the offensive lineman would just ride him out behind the quarterback.
But, more often than not, in moments that counted, Strahan would make a play. He’d do what he had to do. And Strahan could do it all, run like a deer, stop on a dime, change directions in a heartbeat, bull his way through a block or even jump bodies to make the play.
But he was smart too. He’d study his opponent. He’d understand the defensive scheme. And certainly for the latter days of his career, in those last several years, he became a leader, and then he became THE leader.
In fact, the best indicator of his prowess on the field was what happened to the Giants when he wasn’t on the field. The best example was the 2006 season. The Giants couldn’t stop anybody. That they finished a .500 team and made the playoffs by a hair was remarkable. But, even that accomplishment may have been out of reach if not for the exhortations of Strahan.
Read Michael’s book. And then read a book called “The G.M.”. The two, taken together, give you a good idea of the power of Strahan. He endured the pain. He made Tiki a better person. He made Coughlin a better coach. I think he even made some reporters better reporters.
Just as his opponents on the line couldn’t know what to expect from Strahan, whether he would run around them, or bull through them, or whirl like a dervish, so did his personality consist of several quite different elements, some that could scare you but others that could charm.
When Strahan was going through that ugly divorce, it was easy to turn against him. You’d read some ugly things, and you’d wonder. But could any of us endure a microscopic examination of his life and emerge unsullied?
Well, Strahan is nothing if not resilient. He endured that experience just as he endured the pain of every Sunday, or the relentless questioning of those reporters. He’s just a tough guy. And maybe that’s what we should remember the most.
Not just fast or strong, but tough too. And enduring. Following his rookie year, he played 15 or more games in every year but two. In those years he played just 8 games in 2004 and 9 games in 2006. He was always tough and he was always there. If he could walk, he’d be in there.
I’ve already heard that some people think he is a big phony. That stems, I’m sure, from the times you’d see a different person from the one you thought you knew. But Strahan really is a complex individual, and I think people were just seeing the many sides of Michael.
The capacity to laugh and enjoy, but also the capacity to be very tough. All the great ones had it, certainly Ali, Marciano or even Howie Long.
And Michael Strahan too.
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