CHANDLER, Ariz. — He’s not the New York Giants’ most experienced defensive player, perhaps not even their most accomplished.
But in importance, Antonio Pierce likely ranks No. 1.
“When I see him on the field, I feel very comfortable,” said defensive end Michael Strahan, a 15-year veteran. “Now, when I see him off the field, I’m very uncomfortable, because it always looks like he’s up to something. But on the field, he makes you feel very comfortable because he’s so smart. He sees things. He makes adjustments, which is amazing at the speed the game moves. He sees something and he goes over and tells the coaches so they can make adjustments. He is truly a coach on the field.”
Pierce, 29, the middle linebacker, says Strahan is still “the face of the Giants,” but Pierce is the one in the middle of everything the Giants are doing on defense and, for better or worse, one of their dominant spokesmen off the field. There he was defending Eli Manning when the quarterback came under fire; the one defending coach Tom Coughlin, backing the decision to play the last game of the regular season to win; the one ever parlaying the underdog status to the Giants’ favor, the one blowing the air horn in a reporter’s face when they were 0-2.
“You can’t force somebody to be a leader,” said Pierce, who suggested the black suits for the team’s flight to Arizona for Super Bowl XLII. “That has to come from inside you. I try to lead by example.”
To get to the playoffs, let alone the Super Bowl, the Giants had to win close games on the road, making big defensive stops in the fourth quarter. At Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas and Green Bay, the Giants played nearly mistake-free down the stretch, with a cohesion and toughness they lacked in recent seasons.
“(Pierce) not only understands his position, he understands everybody else’s position,” linebacker Reggie Torber said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys, and the offensive coaches will try moving people around to confuse us. Antonio will spot that and make sure we’re always lined up right, and on defense, if you’re lined up right, that’s half the battle.”
When the Giants were holding a slim lead in an NFL playoff game on Jan. 13 in Dallas, Pierce led the delegation to tell defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo not to blitz. He felt the Giants could pressure Tony Romo without it, and put the defensive backs in better position. Throwing into the more conservative defense, Romo was intercepted by R.W. McQuarters to finish the Cowboys.
“Antonio is a student of the game,” Spagnuolo said. “When you see him out there talking and pointing, that’s not phony.”
Pierce, who played at the University of Arizona, couldn’t have gotten this far at 6-feet-1 and 238 pounds by being reticent, or by taking slights sitting down. He spent two disappointing draft days waiting for the phone to ring in 2001, and it never did. He made the Redskins as a free agent, and outfoxed the rest to become a starter. Today, he keeps a list of all the linebackers who were drafted that year, and by his count there are six left in the league.
As a free agent in 2005, he signed with the Giants and is etching his name with the great ones who’ve played linebacker for them. He wears Carl Banks’ old No. 58.
“Especially if you play in the NFC East, you know about all the great linebackers that played here,” Pierce said. “Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks, Harry Carson, Jessie Armstead, Sam Huff. These teams have all been around a long time and have a lot of history.”
Pierce has led the team in tackles with well over 100 each of the past two years. Never was his importance more apparent, though, than late in 2005 when he missed the last three games and the Giants defense fell apart, especially in the 23-0 playoff loss against the Panthers.
Pierce has avoided making predictions, but he has used his Super Bowl pulpit to let the world know the Giants are not intimidated by Tom Brady or the unbeaten Patriots.
“We went against every quarterback, heard everybody say, ‘You can’t beat that guy,’ ” Pierce said. “You can’t beat Jeff Garcia. You can’t beat Tony Romo. You can’t beat Brett Favre in the cold weather. And now, you can’t beat Tom Brady. That’s beautiful. That’s what we want. We’re not here to hand the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the Patriots. We’re not Roger Goodell.”
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