NEW ORLEANS — We should start here: Michael Strahan played his first professional football game on the afternoon of Oct. 17, 1993, a muggy, 60-degree afternoon at Giants Stadium. It was easy to ignore him: he had sprained ligaments in his foot in training camp, he had missed the Giants’ first five games, and therefore was well behind a goal he’d set for himself in the summer.
“I want 10 sacks,” he had said.
The first one came this day, and it came against a quarterback who was plenty used to tasting the turf of East Rutherford: Ken O’Brien, then playing out his days with the Eagles. The sack came on the final play of the first half of a game the Giants won 21-10 and, not surprisingly, the 21-year-old Strahan had a take on the play later on.
“It was a cheap, ‘gimme’ sack, but I’ll take it,” Strahan said. “He could have thrown a touchdown pass on that last play.”
Reminded of his July prediction, Strahan flashed his trademark gap-toothed grin for one of the first times for the record.
“Nine more to go,” he said.
The last time he lined up for the Giants, it was inside the antiseptic University of Phoenix Stadium, Feb. 3, 2008, the very end of Super Bowl XLII. And this time every eye was fixed on Michael Strahan, because the moment Tom Brady threw one final incomplete pass with 10 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Giants were going to be world champions and he would be retiring a champion.
Earlier in the game, he had registered the final sack of his career, putting Brady on the ground, one of five sacks the Giants registered on the day. He’d also had three tackles.
“If you wanted to write the perfect final chapter,” he said when it was over, “I’d say it would be hard to do it much better than that.”
Beginning to end, 15 seasons, 216 games, 1411/2 sacks, 429 tackles, an endless supply of quips and quotes and occasional rants. Every one of them — every single one — while in the employ of the New York Giants.
“I’m proud of a lot of things in my career,” Strahan said from the podium the night the Giants stunned the Patriots and shocked the world in 2008, “but the fact that I’ve only worn one uniform … that’s something I hold truly dear to me.”
This afternoon, if the electors who gather in secret to determine the members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2013 get it right, this ought to be one of the great days in the fabled history of the New York Football Giants.
By nightfall, when the smoke starts pouring from the chimneys of downtown New Orleans, Bill Parcells should finally be tapped, recognized for one of the great coaching lives in any sport, in any era. If you count Parcells and the three most prosperous branches of his coaching tree — Bill Belichick, Tom Coughlin, Sean Payton — that’s eight of the 46 Super Bowl championships, ever. And much of Parcells’ success came with the Giants, much of his resumé crafted there.
But not all of it.
Strahan? If he gets the nod, then he will officially become the 26th player with ties to the Giants enshrined in Canton. That alone is a pretty exclusive club, especially if you consider the Giants have been in business since 1925. But when you look at that list, it also includes names like Larry Csonka — whose fame came in Miami, and whose infamy occurred with the Giants — and Don Maynard (far better known as a Jet) and various others who counted the Giants as one of their addresses, not their only one.
That list could fit a single slice of a small memo pad. And it is ringed with royalty: Frank Gifford and Lawrence Taylor. Harry Carson and Tuffy Leemans. Roosevelt Brown and Mel Hein.
And Michael Strahan.
Only Hein played as many seasons, and none of them came close to playing in as many games. In professional sports, the single-team immortal is a dying breed; in the transient universe of pro football, it’s practically extinct. We saw it all from Strahan, from O’Brien to Brady, from start to finish, the good and the bad, the locker-room lawyer and the locker-room leader, a brilliant career that ought to receive one final boarding pass this afternoon.
Hard to do it much better than that.
Joining the club?
If Michael Strahan or Bill Parcells is voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame today, he’ll join an exclusive club of players, coaches and executives with Giants ties to be enshrined in Canton, Ohio. Here’s a look at the list:
Tim Mara, founder
Wellington Mara, owner
Morris “Red” Badgro, end, 1930-35
Roosevelt Brown, T, 1953-65
Harry Carson, LB, 1976-88
Frank Gifford, HB, FL, 1952-60, 62-64
Mel Hein, C, 1931-45
Cal Hubbard, T, 1927-28, 36
Sam Huff, LB, 1956-63
Tom Landry, DB, 1950-55,
and assistant coach, 1954-59
Alphonse “Tuffy” Leemans, RB, 1936-43
Vince Lombardi, assistant coach, 1954-58
Steve Owen, T, 1926-31, 33,
and head coach, 1931-53
Andy Robustelli, DE, 1956-64
Ken Strong, HB, 1933-35, 39, 44-47
Lawrence Taylor, LB, 1981-93
Y.A. Tittle, QB, 1961-64
Emlen Tunnell, DB, 1948-58
Arnold Weinmeister, DT, 1950-53
Others with Giants ties: FB Larry Csonka; End/coach Ray Flaherty; QB Benny Friedman; HB Joe Guyon; T Wilber “Pete” Henry; QB Arnie Herber; WR Don Maynard; HB Hugh McElhenny; QB Fran Tarkenton; HB Jim Thorpe
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com