No Vacancy
by Luke Paul Chandler
The Super Bowl Champs have been hit hard in free agency, but their biggest loss would be Michael Strahan to retirement, writes Dave Gardner.
By Dave Gardner
The Super Myth
Sometimes a theory goes around in the NFL so much that people believe it to be true in spite of clear evidence to the contrary. The thought that the defending Super Bowl champion always has its team raided in the offseason is one of those theories.
After winning the Super Bowl in 2004, the Patriots only lost one starter (OG Joe Andruzzi — miss him, Patriots fans?). After winning the Super Bowl in 2005, the Steelers lost receiver Antwaan Randle El, DE Kimo von Oelhoffen, and S Chris Hope (of them, only Hope has been successful with his new team). Finally, after winning the Super Bowl in 2006, the Colts lost a total of seven players, but only three of them — Jason David, Nick Harper, and Cato June — were starters; and actually they were picked apart more ravenously the previous season, losing Edgerrin James, Larry Tripplett and David Thornton.
The reality is that every good unrestricted free agent is sought after — it doesn’t matter if he is from a Super Bowl champion, or a team that didn’t make the playoffs (see: Nate Clements last season). Although players claim that they are switching teams because they “believe in the future of the new team,” they are actually just signing because of — no surprise here — money.
In 2007, 37 free agents switched teams: 22 went from a better team to a worse team (based on 2006 records), 2 went to an equal team, and 13 went to a better team. Bad teams just seem to have a tendency to spend big for quick fixes in free agency (see: the Jets and the Raiders). The better teams, like the Giants, do not.
The Super Champs
So what kind of players did the Giants lose? From all reports, the only player of the three that the Giants adamantly tried to re-sign was safety Gibril Wilson. They couldn’t get his signature on a contract, though, before free agency began; and they didn’t want to invest over $15 million dollars in guarantees to him, which is what he commanded on the open market.
The secondary was solid in New York last season, and Wilson will certainly be missed, but the strength of the Giants secondary was largely a product of the pressure that the league’s best defensive line put on opposing quarterbacks. In watching the Super Bowl, it was clear that it was the defensive line that caused Brady to misfire so frequently, even as open receivers abounded.
Other than Wilson, the Giants saw two linebackers walk away. Signed out of Kansas City last season, Kawika Mitchell was excellent on the outside of a ferocious front seven. He, along with Antonio Pierce (Mike LB) and Mathias Kiwanuka (Sam LB) made up one of the most dangerous linebacking corps in the league. However, the Giants felt like he was a replaceable piece of the defense. The other player, LB Reggie Torbor was one of the DE-LB hybrids that the Giants have been stockpiling in recent drafts. He was only a role player on the team, standing out neither in the pass rush or in run defense; his most vital asset was for depth behind Mitchell.
The Super Star
Despite the three players that they lost, the Giants began preparing for the biggest hurdle this season when they resigned DE/DT Justin Tuck before free agency began. Tuck, the backup to Michael Strahan, is a vital part of the Giants defensive line rotation and is ready to assume the starting LE spot when Michael Strahan retires.
That’s the Giants main conern. Will their all-time sack leader walk away from the game now that he has his Super Bowl ring? Before the game, Strahan had this to say: “To win a Super Bowl, that would definitely cap off a career. You can look and go, ‘I could end like (John) Elway, I could end like (Jerome) Bettis,’ and all those things, which is everybody’s dream.”
There have also been rumblings that he is looking for more money. After his very public divorce, he lost a good deal of the $46 million contract he signed in 2002, of which two years remain.
“You know what? If (money) were the reason to come back then I wouldn’t have come back last year because they didn’t do anything (with my contract),” said Strahan. “That stuff is secondary. The biggest thing is, ‘Do I want to play?’ At this point I want to play because I love to play. I don’t want to get out there and do it for money because I’ll end up getting hurt. At this age, I don’t want to be hurt anymore.”
No, for Strahan, his main concern is that his play remains up to his standards; standards that are higher than any exterior force places on him. Strahan’s accolades are awesome: he is a six-time All-Pro, the 2001 Defensive Player of the Year (also 2003 NFC DPoY) when he recorded an NFL record of 22.5 sacks in a single season, and is in fifth place all-time for sacks (a record, however, that he is over 45 sacks away from).
And all of this came from the left — not the right, which benefits from being most quarterback’s blindside — side of the defensive line. If Strahan stays, the Giants will likely only need to address their linebacking corps and secondary through the draft; but if he goes, they’ll need depth all throughout the defense.
If Strahan leaves, he’ll take with him the passion for and the knowledge of the game that he’s imparted to the Giants over the last fifteen seasons. If he leaves, he’ll gracefully occupy a spot in a television studio for the next decade, but he’ll leave behind a vacancy on the left side of the Giants line. And it’s that vacancy that the Giants and their fans are preoccupied with occupying.
Don’t fight it, write it!: Got a question or a comment? Send it in to theconstantgardner@newerascouting.com. Include your name and hometown, and I might include you in an upcoming article (unless you instruct me otherwise).