Strahan

from Peter King’s Monday Morning QB article at CNNSI.com:

I think I understand why Brett Favre laid down for Michael Strahan’s record-breaking sack late in the Pack’s 34-25 win. Strahan is universally respected as a man who plays hard and with tremendous regard for the game. But that doesn’t mean I like it. Strahan started the day with 21 1/2 sacks, a half-sack behind Mark Gastineau’s single-season NFL mark set in 1984. He was held sackless through the game’s first 57 minutes because of Favre’s quick release and an ever-changing cast of Packers characters combining to shut down Strahan. Then, with the game out of hand, Favre went back from center and turned into an onrushing Strahan and took a dive. I like both men. But that was not a proud moment for either. The record was manipulated. “He gave him a gimme, is what he did,” Troy Aikman said on FOX. And what was Cris Collinsworth smoking in the studio afterward? Collinsworth called it “a magical moment in the NFL.” What? A quarterback lays down and a defensive player lays on top of him to break a respected 17-year-old record? That’s magic? Imagine, for a minute that Sammy Sosa is tied with Barry Bonds for the home run record on the last day of next baseball season. Greg Maddux is pitching for Atlanta. Last of the seventh at Wrigley. Could be Sosa’s last at-bat of the season. Maddux underhands a lob over the heart of the plate. Sosa hits it over Waveland Avenue for the record-breaker. Would that be magic? Or professional wrestling? I got into this with Marshall Faulk after the game. I told him the manipulation of records was a bad thing. “Peter,” he said, “it sounds like it’s been a long time since you played the game. Give it to him. He deserves it.” No, I said, he’d deserve it if he got it legitimately. Then he said, “What about Mark Gastineau being helped by steroids when he got the record?” I didn’t think of it at the time, but I am now reminded of what Kenneth King taught his four kids growing up in Connecticut: Two wrongs don’t make a right.