Giants linebacker Jessie Armstead avoided a $5,000 fine late in the regular season when he heeded the NFL’s warning and stopped wearing shoes that didn’t match–one white with red, the other white with blue.
Armstead wore shoes the rest of the season that looked the same but which he said were actually different colors. He told the New York Daily News he would unveil new shoes Sunday for the Super Bowl.
“I’m going by the guidelines,” he said. “I’m walking on the border of it.”
But why did he wear unmatched shoes in the first place?
“If the right one doesn’t get you, the left one will,” he said. “That was my attitude.”
Rise and shine: Giants rookie wide receiver Ron Dixon has learned a basic lesson about life in the pros: Show up for work on time. Coach Jim Fassel suspended Dixon for the Dec. 10 game against Pittsburgh for oversleeping and missing the beginning of Saturday’s practice. It was the second time Dixon had overslept. Since then things have changed around his home.
“He has alarms going off and phones ringing,” Fassel said. “Not all of the alarms are plugged in so they’ll still go if the electricity goes off. His mom is calling him. It must sound like a fire alarm going off. When you wake up with that many bells and whistles, you’re ready.”
Dixon says he overslept on his first offense. But the second time he was dealing with a family issue until 6:50 a.m., fell asleep and then slept through the alarm.
“When I was suspended, what hurt wasn’t the money but watching my teammates play without me,” said Dixon, a third-round pick from Lambuth (Tenn.) University.
The Giants won 30-10 without him, although he has played a key role at other times this season. He had only six receptions during the regular season, but he returned the opening kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown in the Jan. 7 playoff game against Philadelphia. In the NFC title game, he caught a 43-yard pass in a scoring drive.
“All he needs is discipline and structure,” Fassel said. “He has followed through with that, and I’m proud of him. “
Being patient: After two seasons, Joe Montgomery’s career has not exactly worked out as hoped. A second-round pick from Ohio State in 1999, the former Richards High School star endured an injury-plagued rookie season. This season, with running backs Ron Dayne and Tiki Barber ensconced in the lineup, he was inactive for 13 regular-season games.
He has been active for the playoff games but was relegated to running out the clock in the 41-0 win over the Vikings in the NFC title game. He carried 14 times for 42 yards.
“Whenever they give me the ball, I just run with it,” Montgomery said. “I don’t sit here worrying about what’s going to happen.”
Jet planes: The Giants’ practice occasionally was interrupted by jet noise at their practice field parallel to a runway at Tampa International Airport.
The dark side: New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan revealed his secret to being a top defensive player.
“You can get up here and you can smile and you can laugh and you can joke and have a great time,” he said. “And I can do it on the field. I can laugh and smile in the huddle. But when that ball is hiked and you have that guy across from you, you’ve got to know, even though I know this guy and he can be your friend, I’ve got to try to abuse him. I just cannot care about him. You definitely have to have a dark side.”
Strahan said he thinks all players possess it, but the players who can turn that on and off are the toughest ones to compete against.
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Where does it come from?
“Maybe childhood anger,” Strahan said. “I can take a question that one of you ask me today and it may be about something that makes me mad, and I can transfer it to the guy I’m going to play and make me mad about him.
“I don’t know if you call that insanity, but I’m able to do it and I kind of like having to get angry and to be able to go out there and prove who’s the toughest guy out there.”