NFL

Strahan bashes Giants after collapse

Former Giants defensive end Michael Strahan doesn’t go out of his way to say anything negative about his former team in his role with Fox Sports, but he couldn’t hold back after watching the Giants blow a 31-10 fourth-quarter lead in a 38-31 loss to the Eagles.

“I’m not apologizing for that, they should be ashamed of themselves,” Strahan said on the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports radio. “You look at that game and wonder how it got out of hand for the Giants. They got soft and relaxed. They thought, ‘We got it.’

“The Giants have not finished,” he said. “I don’t know if they know how to finish, and they need to learn how, if they expect to do anything this year. . . . You have to finish teams.”

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Wide receiver Steve Smith underwent microfracture surgery yesterday at the Hospital for Special Surgery to repair articular cartilage damage in his left knee.

Smith will be on crutches for six weeks and then faces a long road to get back on the field. The initial prognosis stated Smith also would need a procedure called mosaicplasty, which involves taking plugs of cartilage from normal areas of the knee and transferring it to the damaged area, but Smith did not require that procedure.

That is not an indication that the injury was less severe than anticipated. It is uncertain if Smith will be ready to return in time for the start of the 2011 season.

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A regular-season loss that’s worse than a loss in the Super Bowl?

That’s the way safety Antrel Rolle feels as he continues to try to fathom how the Giants lost to the Eagles, who scored 28 unanswered points in the final 7:28.

“Losing that game on Sunday definitely hurt more than losing that Super Bowl,” Rolle said last night on Sirius XM’s Mad Dog Radio channel.

Rolle was a member of the Cardinals when they lost in the last seconds to the Steelers 27-23 in Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa.

“When you’re in such a close game as we were with Pittsburgh, anyone can win that game,” Rolle said. “There were great players on each side of the ball and it went down to the wire, which is something you expect. But when we had the lead we had against Philly and you lose that game? I’ve never felt that bad about a loss in my life.”