Michael Strahan doesn't hold many grudges from his playing days. He does hold one.
"There are a few guys who I’m like, yeah, I never really liked you. The one guy who sticks out in my mind is Jon Jansen," Strahan said this week on the Dan Patrick Show. "He played for the Redskins, offensive tackle. I never cared for him. For some reason, just something about him that bugged me."
Care to comment, Jansen?
"He hates me because I kicked his ass," Jansen told 97.1 The Ticket. "And I'm loving it that he hated me the most."
Strahan and Jansen went head to head for eight years as NFC East rivals, starting in 1999 when Washington's rookie right tackle, an All-American out of Michigan, held the Giants All-Pro defensive end without a sack in their first meeting. Strahan dared Jansen to do it again in their next clash when he went on ESPN, as Jansen remembers it, "hands together, praying style, and said, 'Please give me Jansen one on one. Please give me Jansen one on one."
And Jansen obliged in another convincing win for the Redskins. From The Washington Post:
"I don't talk with my mouth during the week, and I'm not going to do it now," said Jansen, who in the festive locker room celebrated the victory by passing out cigars from a box of Montecristos. "I go out and play with my pads. I say what I want to say with those. I wouldn't necessarily say I handled [Strahan], but I went out and played one of my better games."
Jansen blanked Strahan again in two games the next year, before Strahan broke through for 3.5 sacks against Washington in 2001 when he also broke the NFL's single-season sack record and won Defensive Player of the Year.
All told, Strahan was held without a sack in eight of his 14 games against Jansen and the Redskins, though he did have 9.5 sacks in the six others -- and the Giants finished 8-6 in the head-to-head series.
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