The New York Giants have had plenty of great players on the defensive side of the ball throughout their history. During all four of their Super Bowl runs, pass rushers are who stole the show.
Last week, ESPN listed the best pass-rushers of all-time, ranking one player per year and two of the Giants’ most famous pass rushers made the list.
Buy Giants TicketsLawrence Taylor, whom many consider the greatest defensive player of all-time, made the list for the years of 1981-1986.
1981-86: Lawrence Taylor, Giants
Taylor was both Defensive Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in 1981, when he helped a Giants defense that had been 27th in points allowed jump to third in one season. He was Defensive Player of the Year again in 1982 and won the award again in 1986, becoming the second and most recent defender to win league MVP honors in the process.
To put Taylor’s performance in context, I’ll remind you of what coach Bill Belichick said about him in talking to ESPN’s Mike Reiss: “I’ve been fortunate to coach a lot of great, great defensive players,” Belichick said, “but when you talk about Lawrence Taylor, now that’s a whole different conversation. I mean, honestly, he could have played any position on defense except corner. He probably could have played corner, too, but safety, linebacker, inside, outside, defensive end, defensive tackle. He played nose guard at North Carolina, so put him wherever you want.”
There were players who might have competed with Taylor during this stretch. Mark Gastineau led the league with 19 sacks in 1983 and then hit 22 sacks in 1984, setting an NFL record that stood for more than a decade. Richard Dent had consecutive 17-sack seasons in 1984 and 1985 for the Bears, who fielded what might have been the best defense in NFL history during the latter season. Even given how productive those players were, though, the majority of NFL observers at the time would have suggested that the Jets and Bears would have improved if Taylor replaced Gastineau or Dent in the lineup. There was just no replacing Taylor.
There is no surprise here as Taylor was by far the most feared defensive player during his time in the league. In his prime there was no one better.
Meanwhile, Michael Strahan was listed for his record breaking 2001season when he set the single-season sack record.
2001: Michael Strahan, Giants
Yes, once upon a time, before he became a television star and morning personality, Strahan was a pretty good football player! It looked like he had peaked with a 15-sack season in 1998, but then came 2001. He was off the scoresheet for the first two weeks of the season but got going fast. He racked up 15 sacks over his next seven games, including a three-sack effort against the Saints and a four-bagger against the Rams.
Strahan’s final sack of that record-setting season might be infamous, given that quarterback Brett Favre seemed to go down innocuously under pressure from an unblocked Strahan. Politely, I’ll just suggest most quarterbacks in their right minds would take a knee against an unblocked Strahan and call it a day as opposed to trying to take on a dominant edge rusher. Even if you want to paint his single-season record with an asterisk, he still managed 22.5 sacks. No other Giants player had more than six.
Strahan’s 22.5 sack total still stands as the most in a single season despite the NFL moving to a 17-game season in 2021. Strahan did make the list again for his 2003 campaign.
2003: Michael Strahan, Giants
Strahan took back the belt in 2003 with an 18.5-sack campaign on a downright miserable Giants team. In a year in which they won four games, faced only 519 pass attempts and didn’t have a single other defensive player with more than 5.5 sacks, he routinely took on double-teams and still managed to consistently make plays. While 2001 was about Strahan taking over a handful of games, 2003 was about consistency. He had 12 different games with at least one sack, a figure that tied him for the league record at the time. (It has since been topped, including once by a player who will later appear on this list.)
This was Strahan’s last dominant season; he missed half of 2004 after tearing a pectoral muscle on his right side and was further sidelined by a right foot ailment in 2006. He considered retiring after the season before returning for one final campaign in 2007. Of course, he made the right choice, as he went off into the sunset, having helped the Giants upset the previously undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
Both Strahan and Taylor are in the Hall of Fame for their accolades after spending the entirety of their NFL careers with Big Blue. They were most certainly two of the best pass rushers in the league during their prime and rightfully earned a spot on the list.
