Michael Strahan- Did he only make the HOF because of his storybook ending?

[JWL]

Gale Sayers- bum

[SeahawkFever]

IMHO, He was the Joe Namath of defensive players- only made the HOF because he played in NY, had one gaudy outlier of a season (Namath's 4000 yard season, Strahan's sack record) and had an all time SB upset.

If they lose to DAL/GB or even that SB and he retires without a ring.... are we sure he's in Canton?

I think he's one of the least deserving HOF'ers ever. Outside of 2001 and the 2007 playoffs...... the dude didn't do it for me.

In regards to SB 42, Junior Seau deserved that ring a hell of a lot more than Strahan did

Is 18.5 sacks not a big enough second best season in your opinion? Strahan did that in 2003 and led the league that year in that stat. Strahan also is credited with the most tackles for a loss in 2001, 2003, and 2005 according to pro football reference.

They were 4-12 in 2003. Lot of those sacks were meaningless

That’s true, and the Giants did have a really bad defense that ranked 29th, but they also had a really bad offense that ranked 30th.

Looking at the Giants from 1997-2005 (the years where Strahan got his accolades), the Giants ranked 3rd, 8th, 23rd, 5th, 16th, 3rd, 17th, and 14th on defense by points.

Looks like a few seasons where the defense was good and a few others where it wasn’t.

That 18.5 sack season was on a terrible team, and the 22.5 sack season was for the 16th ranked defense, but Strahan did have double digit sacks for two of those top five defenses (1997 and 2002), and 9.5 in 2000, and he received a first team all pro for 97 and a second team all pro for 02, so he was contributing to some successful defenses too.

Don’t get me wrong, I could see why the sack record and ending with a Super Bowl title would have stood out to Hall of Fame voters, but he still had some other successful seasons outside of those from the looks of it.

[Bryan]

No need to apologize. Out of curiosity though: How was Strahan at run defense?

I always thought of Strahan as being the best run/pass combo DE of his generation. You had guys like Justin Smith and Grant Wistrom who didn't put up big sack totals but were very effective....you had guys like Freeney & Simeon Rice who had sack totals but not very strong at point of attack...but you didn't really have a great all-around DE other than Strahan. Perhaps I am overrating Strahan, but at the time I thought he was clearly the best DE in the NFL when he played.