Strahan a giant pain for Patriots

By Michael Smith, Globe Staff, 10/9/2003

FOXBOROUGH -- There are compliments, and then there is the compliment Patriots coach Bill Belichick paid Giants left defensive end Michael Strahan yesterday. (Speaking of paid, Strahan reportedly pulled in about $20.6 million last year in salary and bonuses. Hey Mike, can a brother get a loan?)

Asked whether Strahan, fourth among active players with 97 1/2 career sacks, could have started for the 1986 Giants, Belichick, coordinator of that famed defense, didn't take a moment to consider it. He didn't even repeat the question, which he tends to do before answering the difficult ones.

"Oh, hell yeah," Belichick said. "You kidding me? We didn't have any defensive linemen in his class. Not even close."

"He said that?" Strahan said. "Wow. Now that's the ultimate compliment. Wow. Man. I can't even imagine. That is a huge compliment. Hopefully I can live up to that on Sunday."

Wow is right. The '86 Giants had George Martin at left end. He amassed 96 sacks from 1975 to 1988 (sacks didn't become an official NFL statistic until 1982). Jim Burt was the starting nose tackle, a Pro Bowler that year, and a pretty decent player in his own right. The right end was Leonard Marshall, who ranks fifth in team history with 79 1/2 sacks. And let's not even talk about the linebackers.

Guess this Strahan cat must really be legit.

"He's a load," Belichick said. "He's a load."

(FYI: You can always tell whether Belichick is really sincere by whether or not he repeats himself.)

"He's a smart football player. He's a smart football player," Belichick added. See. "He's one of those guys where you think you can get this on him or that, you think you can run inside, and then you try to run the trap, and then he comes down there and blows the trap up. Then the next play, you think, `He's going to close and we're going to be able to get inside of him,' and he's up the field and he's got you cut off. However, he knows -- whether it's the formation, the recognition of the play, or whatever it is -- he's really a good football player."

What Strahan is is a really big looming headache for New England's right tackle, who as of yesterday was a mystery man. Tom Ashworth, a converted collegiate tight end in his second season, has started the past two games in place of starter Adrian Klemm. Klemm was listed on the injury report as doubtful (25 percent chance of playing) with what was described by a team source as a severe "high-low" right ankle sprain, though there's a decent chance he'll return this week. What timing.

Ashworth already has familiarized himself with Strahan's resume. "All-time single-season sack leader [22 1/2 two years ago]. All-Pro I don't know how many times [a Pro Bowler five of the last six seasons]. He's as good as it gets."

For Tom Brady, Strahan is Patriots' enemy No. 1. "He can terrorize a game," the quarterback said. "He's everything you'd ask for in a player. He's tough. He's strong. He's quick. Rushes the passer. Plays the run great. He's going to be a guy that we have to account for on every play."

At 31 and in his 11th season, Strahan can tell when someone's trying to play him and doesn't get caught up in his own hype. "[The Patriots] are trying to sucker me," he said. "My wife does the same thing when she wants something expensive. That doesn't work. It's not working." Asked about the Rush Limbaugh-Donovan McNabb controversy, Strahan joked, "I think I'm overrated."

He says he doesn't underestimate. Though blessed with speed, power, and instincts -- "He's made a couple of plays instinctively that are some of the best plays I've seen in my career," Belichick said -- Strahan works as diligently during the week scouting opponents as they do analyzing him. He keeps detailed notes on each lineman he faces. He doesn't have any info on Ashworth or Klemm, and though unproven compared with this heavyweight, he says he isn't taking either lightly.

"I don't know if I'm getting Ashworth or Klemm," said Strahan, who has two sacks this season and says he feels no lingering effects from his preseason toe injury. "The difficult part is I have to study for two guys. Whenever you're not familiar with a guy and you haven't played him, you have to study film, you have to trust in what you see and what you know you can do . . . It's like kissing a girl for the first time. You're nervous and you hope it goes well. You never know how the date's going to go."

With proper preparation, Strahan knows he may leave Gillette Stadium with his seventh career three-sack game. "Those are always the guys who do their best against you," he said of the Ashworth/Klemm types. "Those are the guys who a lot of guys fall asleep on, don't study for, don't expect to play well. Whenever you fall into that trap, you're going to get beat. I operate under the fear that this is the game where this guy's going to play lights out. This guy could possibly be an All-Pro. Who knows? Just give him some time. I don't want to make a guy look like an All-Pro against me."