Over the years, Mark Gastineau continued to wreak havoc on his reputation. Most of this harm was done off the field, much of it after his career was already over, and it often involved battered women and prison sentences, not to mention Brigitte Nielson. Look up “jerk” in the dictionary and nobody would be surprised to find Mark’s photograph. He became a sad joke, a parody of conceit and lack of control. He would screw up, promise to sin no more because he was now rehabilitated, then screw up all over again. Yet one noble thing could not be wrenched from his grasp for more years than expected. Gastineau had recorded a greater number of sacks in a single NFL season than anyone else.
This season, New York’s other football team followed up a Super Bowl appearance with a disappointing failure to even qualify for the playoffs. The Giants stumbled into week 17 playing for only one thing other than pride and paycheck. One of their own, Michael Strahan, entered the game only one sack short of breaking the long standing record. Seemingly greater pass rushers had come and gone in the intervening years without eclipsing Gastineau’s mark. Now at last the record appeared to be within striking distance. Mark’s most notable accomplishment was clearly in peril. Strahan had four quarters in which to get to Green Bay’s Brett Favre just once.
The passing of the crown seemed inevitable at the game’s start. Yet the big moment was delayed time and time again, until there were only a couple of minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. The Packers owned a comfortable lead, so their interests lay in doing no more than literally running out the clock. Executing several consecutive handoffs was the most logical game plan, obvious to the most casual football fan. There was no reason for Brett Favre to put himself, or his team’s lead and playoff position, in harm’s way. So everyone watching was shocked when he inexplicably failed to hand the ball off to a running back. Instead he rolled right, as in right into the path of an unblocked Michael Strahan. Favre slid safely to the ground, Michael tapped him to record the sack, then dropped to his knees in a posture that suggested he was weeping tears of joy.
