ESPN anchor Chris Berman decided to share the stage with Giants star defensive end Michael Strahan.
(Jim Davis/Globe Staff)
GLENDALE, Ariz. - Unlike Rip Van Winkle, a fellow New Yorker who snoozed for 20 years, Michael Strahan's nap lasted just one night, but he was just as bewildered when he arose.
"I remember picking up the paper in front of the hotel room door and it said, 'RAVENS WIN,' " said the Giants' irrepressible defensive end. "I'm like, we played?"
Not that the evening of Super Bowl XXXV was memorable, at least not for the battered men in the blue helmets, who took a 34-7 horsewhipping that still stings seven years later.
"You lose, what is there to remember?" said Strahan. "You make it this entire way and no one remembers the second-place person, and we were that second-place person."
He and wide receiver Amani Toomer are the only Giants from 2000 back for another go. All around him are kids, some of whom still were playing Pop Warner when he signed on in 1993 out of Texas Southern.
"The younger guys are crazy," proclaimed Strahan, who has achieved a loquacious maturity at 36. "I'm wise and distinguished."
And the former Army brat who grew up in Germany and was dubbed the "Mannheim Steamroller" as a rookie still is rumbling across the enemy line, looking to flatten quarterbacks.
"If my Mama was back there, I'd be trying to knock her out," Strahan said. "I could care less. 'Mama, one of us has to go down.' "
That's the attitude Strahan knows he has to take Sunday, when he and Osi Umenyiora will likely have to chase Tom Brady halfway across the desert for the Giants to win. Strahan loves Brady, whom he's described as perfect, but he can't wait to put him on his cover-boy back.
Evading his paparazzi pursuers, the Patriots quarterback observes, is much easier than eluding No. 92.
"Michael Strahan is much bigger and much meaner and much faster," Brady said. "I sure as heck can't outrun Michael, and that's the problem. Everyone else I could probably outrun."
Strahan is the one man the New York defense can't live without, and he'll readily agree.
"My job is to do everything - motivator, run-stopper, and pass-rusher," he said. "And we are going to need all of that to win, not just from me but from everybody. This is what I am built to do."
Yet until the season began, it seemed that Strahan might have had enough of it. He'd spent 14 years in a New York uniform, played in seven Pro Bowls, and was headed for the Hall of Fame.
Two of his previous three seasons had been sabotaged by injuries and the club wouldn't renegotiate his $4 million contract.
Maybe it was time to retire, Strahan wondered.
"You sit there and think, am I done?" he said. "Do I want to go out with an injury? It's not the way I wanted to finish my career."
That didn't mean, though, that he wanted to get himself mauled in training camp again.
"I went through 14 of those," Strahan said. "I spent over a year of my life living in a college dorm."
So he waited until six days before the opener to report, and after the Giants lost their first two games, Strahan began having second thoughts.
"I was like, 'Man, the beach sounds good,' " he said. "Is it too late to start over and say that I'm done?"
Yet Strahan wouldn't have missed this Palisades Park ride for the world.
"You know what? If I would have stayed retired, they wouldn't be here," he said, cackling with his great gap-toothed grin. "We all know that."
This time, though, Strahan wants to come out of the Super Bowl with more than defeat-induced amnesia.
"I'm trying not to dream of the ring," he said. "I'm trying to relax about it. But I really, really want it."
And then, maybe, he goes to the beach for good. Strahan already has played more games than anyone else in club history, and no Giant ever has come back for a 16th season. When it's over, it's over, he realizes, but he'd hate to hear people saying that he "used to be" a good player while he's still playing.
"If we win the game, I'm supposed to quit?" he said, laughing. "I've done everything personally that I feel like I can do - awards, honors, that sort of thing. The only thing I haven't done is the ultimate thing, which is to win a Super Bowl."
John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
