Michael Strahan will be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, on Aug. 2 — an honor the defensive end said he is “overwhelmed” to receive, and one made even more special by the fact he spent his entire career with the Giants.
“[There’s] so much history on the side of the Giants, and we all spent our career in one place,” Strahan said on a conference call Wednesday, while referencing fellow Hall of Famers and lifelong Giants Harry Carson and Lawrence Taylor. “I’m just honored because it’s nothing I had in my brain, that I’d be joining these guys in the Hall of Fame.”
Strahan got his Hall call this year, after finishing as a finalist in the voting in 2013.
The Super Bowl champion and seven-time Pro Bowler said the honor will be the greatest accolade he receives.
“[It’s] the No. 1 honor you can get in the game,” he said. “One thing I could say and share is, you can get all these great accolades, but if you understand it’s not [just me]. It’s going to be me, but it’s also the guys I played with over 15 years. Same with the Super Bowl. It’s hard to rank [the accolades], but as a Hall of Famer, you’ re recognized as one of the best to play the game.”
Strahan, who totaled 141¹/₂ sacks in his career and holds the single-season sack record with 22¹/₂ in 2001, said when he first came into the NFL, the Hall of Fame was the furthest thing from his mind.
“My goal was just to make a little money so I didn’t have to move back to my parents’ house,” he said. “Make my parents proud and happy, play hard and do the best I could do. Once you think Hall of Fame, you set yourself for failure. I just went out and played as hard as I could. I just looked at myself as a football player, who went out at the right time on a team that got hot at the right time.”
Strahan certainly exited on a high note. He retired after the Giants shocked the previously undefeated Patriots to win Super Bowl XLII.
That triumph came six years ago — a lifetime by NFL standards — and when Strahan was asked what he expected from this year’s Giants team, he said he didn’t know because there were so many new faces from when he played.
“It’s really tough [to predict] because the team has changed so much,” he said. “Watching Chris Snee retire was tough because it felt like the end of the last era. I don’t know what to expect. It’s so unpredictable — [but] whenever you don’t expect anything, they end up winning Super Bowls.”
Strahan will have plenty of family and former teammates at the induction ceremony.
But he took the time to single out one of the most important figures in his life — the late Deacon Jones, a Hall of Fame defensive end who played from 1961-1974.
“There’s one particular guy that has always been there for me, [as] a father figure and mentor, and that’s Deacon,” he said. “He took care of me, had the best stories, and [gave me] the most encouragement throughout my career.”
Strahan also praised two of his former teammates who will attend the ceremony.
“Jessie Armstead [came about in the] most critical part of my career, who got me out of my funk because I knew I had another playmaker,” he said of the linebacker who played for the Giants from 1993-2001.
“[Defensive tackle] Keith Hamilton is one of a kind, and I love the 11, 12 years we played together. Nobody like The Hammer, [he] took a lot of pressure off me and made me play better.”
Strahan also gave kudos to Jim Fassel, who coached the Giants from 1997 to 2003.
“He took us to a Super Bowl, we won an NFC Championship for him, and he’s a good man,” he said. “He made the game fun. I went to my first Pro Bowl and Super Bowl under him. [He’s a] very influential person in my career.”