Naturally, I also asked Strahan about the tumultuous week just had by the Giants. It was far from the relaxing one he described for himself. Plaxico Burress refused to practice until he receives a new contract and threatened to hold out in July while Jeremy Shockey wouldn't emerge from the building while the rest of the team was on the field.
"To be honest, I don’t know enough about it to say anything about it," Strahan said. "Plus, why would I? It’s not my job to do that. I’m no longer there."
I pointed out that others in recent memory have retired and still found time to comment on the team.
"But who am I to say anything?" Strahan asked. "Those guys don’t have to listen to me anymore. That’s the beauty of where I’m at. I can say whatever I want to say or chose to say. But I just walked out the door, man. I’m not trying to get roped up in anything right now. I’m enjoying this. Give me a week! This is a week to the day that I called and told them I was going to retire. That’s their situation, everybody has their own situation to deal with."
I asked Strahan whether, in his experience, conflicts like these vanish once the pads go on in training camp and football comes back into focus.
"It depends on the situation," he said. "You have certain guys who, something has to give. For the most part, guys just don’t do things and say 'I’m not gonna do this or do that' and all of a sudden the season rolls around and it’s ‘You know, I changed my mind.’ It just doesn’t work that way. I believe there’s some truth in both sides of everything when it comes to this stuff. Hopefully everybody can be happy at the end. That’s the bottom line. Everybody needs to feel happy and appreciated in their career to go out and do their best."