Peter King Names Eight Giants to His NFL All-time 53-man Roster
The New York Giants are one of the most storied franchises in National Football League history, having drafted and developed or, in some cases, acquired legends of which 32 Pro Football Hall of Fame members can lay claim to having once worn Giants blue.
So, to put together an all-time 53-man list of the top players to have graced the professional gridiron is no easy task for anyone. Yet, the great Peter King, who has covered the league for decades, attempted to do that with a recent 53-man roster of all-time greats in which he purposely eschewed the obvious choices.
And on his all-time 53-man roster, eight players with ties to the Giants were selected for their underrated yet important contributions to the game. Here's a look at who King selected.
Fullback: Maurice Carthon
Carthon joined the Giants from the USFL's New Jersey Generals in 1985 and was part of the Giants' first two Super Bowl championships in 1986 and 1990.
Considered a bruising fullback who pounded open holes for running backs Joe Morris and Ottis Anderson, the durable Carthon, who only missed one game in his Giants career, Carthon, Carthon also finished second among the team's rushing yardage leaders in 1986, his primary role that year being to help Morris rush for a then-franchise record 1,516 yards.
Carthon's last season with the Giants was in 1991. He finished playing with the Colts in 1992 and then pursued a career as an NFL head coach with several teams from 1994 through 2012.
Defensive End Michael Strahan
Strahan falls under the "obvious choice" for the list, but truthfully, one can't leave him off the list, including Hall of Famers Reggie White and Bruce Smith.
King's lauding of Strahan pointed to a unique aspect that the former Texas Southern product developed: he was better in his 30s than he was in his 20s. Noted King: "He had 67.5 sacks in his first five years of his thirties and led the league three times in tackles for loss as a thirty-something. Took pride in run defense, too."
Strahan, a Hall of Famer, played his entire career (1993-2007) with the Giants, who drafted him in the second round of the 1993 draft. Strahan famously helped the Giants win their third Super Bowl championship before retiring, where he would soon launch a successful media career.
LB Lawrence Taylor
Yes, another obvious name to the list, but another guy who, if you leave off the list, what good is the list anyway?
The legendary "LT" fell to the Giants by a great stroke of luck when the New Orleans Saints decided to draft running back George Rogers in 1981, leaving Taylor to go to the Giants, who had the No. 2 overall pick that year, changed the way the game was played.
Taylor, the last defensive player to win league MVP in 1986 and one of only two defensive players in NFL history to win the award, was solely responsible for all-time great NFL coaches like Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs coming up with new ways to slow him down (Taylor couldn't be stopped)--ways that are still part of the game's fabric today.
Besides being an absolute terror on the field, Taylor had a high threshold for pain, most notably playing a 1988 game against the Saints in which he had a torn deltoid muscle that necessitated his arm being played in a harness. In that game, LT sacked quarterback Bobby Herbert thrice and hit him four more in a 13-12 Giants victory.
DB/ ST Reyna Thompson
Defensive back Reyna Thompson was a ninth-round pick in 1986 out of Baylor by the Miami Dolphins, for whom he played four seasons. He joined the Giants in 1990, in time for their Super Bowl XXV championship run, and all he did was establish himself as the David Tyree of his time, only better.
Thompson became an ace special teas guy, making the Pro Bowl in 1990 for his gunner work on punt coverage. King opined that Thompson and Bills special teams ace Steve Tasker "are the best gunners I ever saw."
WR/ST David Tyree
Tyree will forever be known for the "Helmet Catch" in Super Bowl XLII, but long before that, he, like Thompson years prior, was a special teams demon named to a first-team all-pro in 2005 and his only Pro Bowl berth, also in 2005.
A sixth-round pick out of Syracuse in 2003 whose NFL career started rocky due to his troubled path, Tyree straightened out his life and went on to become one of the most respected players in the locker room and organization, even landing a spot in the front office in 2017 as the team's director of player development.
TE Mark Bavaro
Bavaro clearly defined the strong and silent type during his time with the Giants. Nicknamed "Rambo" for his resemblance to the Sylvester Stallone movie character (a nickname Bavaro didn't care for), Bavaro was a fourth-round pick out of Notre Dame for the Giants in 1985. It was part of the team's first two championship seasons.
Bavaro, who did his best to stay under the radar, jumped into the national spotlight during a Monday Night Football game against the San Francisco 49ers on December 1, 1986, in which he famously caught a pass over the middle and picked up 12 yards after the catch while dragging four 49ers defenders attempting to bring him down along for the ride.
A degenerative knee condition began to take its toll on him during the 1990 season, and he was cut in July 1991. However, the Giants re-signed him to a one-year contract, and he spent the 1991 season on the PUP list.
The following year, the two-time Pro Bowler and first-team All-Pro (1986 and 1987) went to Cleveland, whose head coach was former Giants defensive coordinator Bill Belichick. Bavaro finished his career with the Eagles in 1993-1994, recording 351 career receptions for 4,7333 yards and 39 touchdowns.
The Rest
RB/Return Specialist Brian Mitchell: Mitchell only spent the 2003 season with the Giants, his last as an active NFL player. Before coming to New York, he spent the 1990-1999 seasons with the Washington Commanders and the 2000-2002 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles.
WR Chris Hogan: Giants fans probably won't remember Hogan's time on the team, and that's because it was a quick in 2011, his first year in the league where after signing as an undrafted free agent out of Monmouth University with the San Francisco 49ers, the Giants signed him to their practice squad on September 12.
New York released him a little more than a week later, and he landed with the Dolphins. Hogan made his mark by catching passes from future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady while with the New England Patriots, where he and Malcolm Mitchell were Brady's favored targets in their Super Bowl comeback win over the Atlanta Falcons.
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