Missing Strahan Already

Michael Strahan retires and another NFL Man in Full is lost to old age/"other interests."

There were times Strahan did ridiculous things - verbally hammering a reporter in the Giants locker room in 2006 comes to mind. There were times he seemed a little self-absorbed. OK, tremendously self-absorbed. He banged his tin cup against the bars of his cell for more money and greater respect and made life difficult for Tom Coughlin but all-in-all, the NFL was a better place with Strahan in it than it will be with him out of it.

He was candid. He had a sense of humor. Professional football was important to him but he realized that it's really just getting paid for knocking grown men onto the ground before the run too far.

And he enjoyed himself. I remember in early 2002 when I was covering the Patriots for a suburban paper in Massachusetts. Somehow, I wound up at Pat O'Brien's in New Orleans' French Quarter (yeah, I was as surprised as anyone).

There were plenty of former and current players there, plenty of recognizable national media. I don't recall any of them being aloof to the "commoners" but neither did I see any of them engage fans. Strahan did. Not just the ones that were nice to look at either. He posed for pictures and snapped pictures and threw his arm around people and enjoyed himself in a way that I recalled at the time as being Barkleyesque.

And there was no "show" to it. Nobody would have known if he was a jerk or a good guy and yet, he chose to be a good guy.

Does that make him God's gift to mankind? No. But it does at least show his nature.

As for the football side of things, you might as well get your tickets now for Canton, Ohio in 2013 when Strahan and his buddy Brett Favre will be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Both guys set their records (Strahan the single-season sack mark courtesy of Favre's laydown job in), both guys got their rings, both guys were emblematic of their franchises. And both franchises are going to feel the void these well-developed player/people leave.