Throwback Player Profile #6 - Michael Strahan

Seeing as Pro Football Hall of Fame festivities have begun in Canton, Ohio, I feel it only appropriate to make Michael Strahan - on a personal level, my favourite Giant of all time - the subject of this retrospective article.

It is also appropriate that, on Saturday night, Strahan will be inducted into the pro football hall of fame to stand alongside some of the giants of the game. His career saw him morph from a raw but talented second round draft pick in 1993, where he would be part of a defensive unit that also contained Lawrence Taylor, to a talismanic leader who walked away from the game with the Super Bowl ring that had eluded him for fifteen seasons.

Their careers may have only overlapped by one season, but in 1993 the Giants briefly had arguably their two greatest ever defensive players on the roster simultaneously. But of course, no one saw this at the time. Strahan experienced an unusual entry into the world of football; living on a US army base in Mannheim, Germany, Strahan didn't play football as a kid and wouldn't until he returned to Houston for his senior year of high school.

He may not have had the experience level of many college players, but he boasted raw physical talent, which was enough to see the unpolished defensive end taken by the Giants as the fortieth player selected in the 1993 NFL draft.
Jordan Ranaan of nj.com recently unearthed their scouting report on the Texas Southern defensive end:

"A tall good-looking athlete who needs bulk and additional strength for next level. He has plenty of quickness, agility, balance, speed and change of direction to be a very good pass rusher. No reason why he can't grow into a power rusher, neutralize and control line-of-scrimmage type. An upfield player for Texas Southern. Not a leverage player and runs himself out of too many plays. Michael is aggressive and works hard in pursuit. Potential to be a top player in NFL. A situational pass-rusher first year."

Despite his obvious talent, the organisation had concerns from the get-go; Strahan was considered difficult and moody and John Mara recently stated that "there were times you wondered, ‘Maybe we made a mistake'". After a one-sack rookie season as a 'situational pass-rusher', Strahan slowly but surely blossomed into a dominant power rusher, posting his first double-digit sack sack season in his fifth year.

Naturally, Strahan will be remembered most fondly as one of the NFL's finest pass-rushers. After a slow start, he rattled off a host of double-digit sack seasons (the most recent taking place in 2005, two years before his retirement), including the 2001 season in which he set the single-season sack record with 22.5. Despite the controversy surrounding it, Strahan still managed to accumulate his sack total for the season in the space of thirteen weeks.
His last sack came, poetically, at a pivotal moment of Super Bowl XLII. Tom Brady had driven the Patriots' offense to the Giants' 25 yard line, Strahan sacked Brady for a six-yard loss on third down and Bill Belichick opted to go for it on fourth down. The conversion attempt failed and the Patriots left three vital points on the field.

Former Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi recently had this to say regarding Strahan:

"I have never seen an elite pass rusher that played the run as well as he did, because it doesn’t happen. Now believe me, I understand the strategy that a lot of it was to negate his pass rush. But I know that [Vince] Lombardi used to run at Deacon Jones. You just didn’t run at Michael Strahan"

If possible, his run-stopping talents are arguably his most underrated and help set him apart from his contemporaries in the Hall of Fame. Strahan could never be accused of being one-dimensional, and the man himself takes great pride in his status as a feared run-stopping defensive end.

Strahan was on the 2000 Giants team that was humbled so badly by the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV, so it was no surprise that he finally called it a career following the team's win in Super Bowl XLII and the acquisition of a much-coveted championship ring. It is no great surprise that the charismatic gap-toothed defensive end made a seamless transition to television, where he can be found hosting Good Morning America on ABC, and during the season as a pundit on Fox's NFL coverage.

He left the Giants as their all-time leading sack artist, as the league's reigning leader in sacks, a seven-time pro bowler, a six-time all pro, and as one of the finest players (defensive or otherwise) to have laced up a pair of cleats for one of the league's most storied franchises. Strahan contributed hugely to New York Giants lore throughout his decade-and-a-half career - from his epic clashes with the Philadelphia Eagles' John Runyan and his 'stomp 'em out' sound bites to the familiar and now-iconic sight of him flexing his muscles following a sack or tackle for loss. Michael Strahan compiled a career that had 'first-ballot hall of famer' written all over it, and although he was denied this opportunity last year, he is more-than worthy of his place among the greatest players the game has ever seen.