Michael Strahan made the right choice
I admire the guy for making the decision not to come back.
He could easily have surrendered to the moment, decided his old team needed his help, and ditched all the plans he had carefully made during a very deliberate process in the off-season. Strahan would have been welcomed back to the team with open arms, and it would have been an insanely interesting story regardless of how it turned out.
But the guy has been retired in his own mind for a long time now, and to suddenly ignore what his heart was telling him throughout the process would have been unfair to himself and, ultimately, to the team.
Too often we see athletes not know when it's time to hang it up. Strahan was different, because he was in touch with himself more than most. Kudos to him for sticking to his plan, regardless of the tug he felt from his old team who could have used his help in the wake of Osi Umenyiora's season-ending injury.
And well done to his agent, Tony Agnone, for helping to sift through the madness with some sound advice during the process. He spoke frequently to Strahan, who has been vacationining in Greece.
"I said, 'Here are the pros, and here are the cons,'" Agnone said. "The cons, to me, outweigh the pros, but you've got to sit down and sleep on it and look over the Aegean Sea and think about it. One thing I love about him is that when he goes out to perform, he wants to perform to the ultimate level. At this point, I don't know if he was ready in his heart to do that."
Agnone told me that he told Strahan to think past the swirl of events generated in the immediate aftermath of Umenyiora's injury.
"I told him to think about the reality, that in two months, how are you going to feel. Everything is worn off, and now you're in the battle again. Do you really want that when you've been working on your other career? At that point, we came to the conclusion that it didn't make a lot of sense. He loves the Giants and he loves the fans, but it just wasn't the right thing."
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Comments (10)
Agreed, and in the Summer of Farve what a pleasant sight!
Re the Osi post below, hard to believe he would holdout coming off a lost season. And how could the Giants value his post surgerical abilities without watching him play a season? If he was looking for pressure a holdout this season, with his HOF buddy retired at the other end of the line, was the play. Along those lines, has any player ever held out after such a severe injury?
Craig:
Re: Osi. I don't think he'd hold out, but it is not crazy for a player to want to re-do his deal in that circumstance, especially if he'd made noises about it already. Certainly the leverage is not there, but he and the Giants would know early on whether the knee is a factor. I don't think it will be. They repaired - not removed - the meniscus, so he is expected to be full strength by December.
And what's up with Feely? He was solid in Blue, and there are plenty of marginal talents at the game deciding position. The initial spin on the Fins cut was his mouth and the Tuna clashed. If he cannot stick with KC for more than a cup of coffee I expect bigger concerns exist. Do teams even sign vets to bring them into camp for a one day kickoff? My impression was that activity was not typically under contract.
So the surgery went well then. Say the Giants make another playoff run, could we see Osi for the playoffs?
Yes, the surgery went well and the rehab is 4 months, but Osi will not be eligible to be in the playoffs. By placing him on injured reserve, he can't play for the remainder of the year (including playoffs.) The Giants just wanted to shut him down for the year and get him right for 2009.
I'm curious about the IR rule. I had heard that it was instituted a while back to prevent teams with greater financial resources from stockpiling their rosters with healthy and injured players - something to that affect. Now with an established cap and every team having adequate financial resources, don't you think the NFL should revisit a rule that forces a team to disable a player for a full season when the injury may not require that length of time? They are the only major sport that does this. How absurd, at the end of every NFL season, to see a number of fully healthy players on the sideline unable to contribute because of an outdated rule. Change the darn thing already.
BG-
You're wrong.
His old team didn't NEED his help yet. They WANTED their security blanket. First they have to prove they can play without him. Then later in the season, if they're making a playoff run (as they should), then it may be that they "need" him to help push them over the top.
You don't call in the calvary before the battle has even started.
I hope he works out with a mind of maybe coming back Novemberish. Interesting to see if he works his way back into football shape just in case.
What do you think?
And please check up on him to see about his work outs.
Glen:
On the IR rule: Years ago, teams would indeed stash players on IR, even when they weren't hurt. The Redskins were notorious for this. So the rule is intended to prevent a team from gaining a competitive edge. It's not so much about the money.
It is worth nothing that the inactive list was increased from two to
eight 20 years ago so that teams could de-activate injured layers who would not be sidelined for the entire season, or a significant portionof it. The injured reserve list is for seriously injured players.
Thanks for explaining this rule. So if Osi could be healthy by December, why not put him on the inactive list?
Glen:
The Giants could very well have done just that, but they decided to shut Osi down for the rest of the year and just get him healthy for '09. I'm sure it was a consideration. Remember, though, that the Giants would have had to keep him on their 53-man roster the entire time he was hurt. Teams don't like to do that, especially if they're trying to give themselves some flexibility in the event of unexpected circumstances.