Promises, promises.
The Dallas Cowboys' defense was formidable enough in the 1990s but it could've been deadlier: coming off a win in Super Bowl XXVII, the Pokes held the 29th pick in the ensuing NFL Draft, the final choice of the first round traditionally bestowed to the champions.
According to Michael Strahan, his name was supposed to appear in that slot, had a promise from Jimmy Johnson been kept.
"Jimmy promised he was going to draft me to the Cowboys and flew me to Dallas," Strahan recalled on the "Let's Go!" podcast hosted by Tom Brady. "I met Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin and all these guys."
At the time, Strahan had established himself as a legitimate NFL prospect at Texas Southern, a Division I-AA (now Football Championship Subdivision) school in his native Houston. Strahan was seemingly destined for Dallas to the point where he was in possession of a Cowboy contract on draft day and was ready to sign upon submission of the selection card.
But that call never came: Dallas instead traded the 29th pick (as well as the 112th choice) to the Green Bay Packers in exchange for Green Bay's second, fourth, and eighth rounders, as well as an additional second pick previously obtained from San Francisco.
The Packers wound up selecting Alabama safety (and future Cowboy) George Teague to close out the first round, forcing Strahan to be patient. He was eventually chosen by the New York Giants with the 40th pick, six choices before Dallas went on the clock with the first of the Packer picks.
Strahan humorously recalled confronting Johnson, his current Fox Sports colleague, years after the incident.
"I say to Jimmy, 'You lied. You promised me,'" a laughing Strahan told Brady. "He said, 'Well you know I thought you were going to drop and I can get you a lot lower, plus I didn't know you were going to be any good.'"
Skipping Strahan perhaps went down as one of the few, if not relatively egregious, errors of the Johnson era: each of the four players chosen in lieu of Strahan at No. 29 (Kevin Williams, Darrin Smith, Derrick Lassic, Reggie Givens) was off the Dallas roster by 1997 while he went on to become of the Cowboys' most recurring antagonists as a career-long member of the division rival Giants. Strahan amassed 141.5 sacks and a Super Bowl ring over 15 blue seasons (1993-2007) and was later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014.
In his conversation with Brady, Strahan couldn't help but think about the hypotheticals behind the idea of his helmet bearing a star rather than a lower-case NY.
"If I had been a Cowboy, my life would be completely different," Strahan said. "(But New York) had been literally the best place for me and it's a tough city to play in because of the pressure of everyday media, the scrutiny ... but, man, I was just so young, and came from Germany. I didn't know, this is what I've got to do."
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