Tim Layden's "Big Hits" cover story in SI

Anyone else read it?

He got some great quotes, especially from Michael Strahan about wanting to take anothe rman down, etc. (I'll find the exact quote in a while and post it).

The one problem I had with the story was that the arcane play-by-play got to me after a while. Just too much of it.

But a good effort.

I was surprised with how many players refused to talk to him, including Sean Taylor and Chad Johnson, of all people.

 

Yeah, I just finished it this morning. Chad Johnson was surprising. Maybe he was embarrassed by the hit. I found the comments at the end of the piece a bit disturbing. I can't remember who it was, but he talked about something needing be done before players begin killing each other. Players keep getting faster and stronger.

 

What I found interesting was that it felt like the descriptions of the plays and all the "stuff" around the hits seemed to get shorter as the piece got longer. Did anyone else notice that?

 

Definitely. I thought maybe even Layden was getting bored with the play-by-play! Or else he knew that the readers would after a while - like, "OK, Tim, we get the point." Actually pretty astute of him or an editor to pace it that way. One thing for sure - he sure hit some training camps for this piece.

 

I disagreed with putting Sean Taylor's hit on the Buffalo punter in there.

It was in the Pro Bowl -- a game doesn't count.

It was a cheap shot -- not a legit hit like on Reggie Bush in the playoffs.

 

Thought it was cool that Eagles had two, maybe three, of the hits ... Sheldon on Reggie, Mikell on Shockey ... wasn't there another?

 

Strahan's quote:

"It's the most perfect feeling in the world to know that you've hit a guy just right, that you've maximized the physical pain he can feel. It feels like every muscle in your body is working in unison, and all your energy goes into his body. You feel the life just go out of him. You've taken all of this man's energy and just dominated him."

 

Haven't read the Layden piece yet, but I will. In "Bringing the Heat" (which I think is a very under-rated football book), Mark Bowden talks at length to Andre Waters about making a huge hit and the physical pleasure he derives from the sensation, and then hypothesizes that maybe certain players like Waters are simply hard-wired to to interpret as pleasurable a feeling that most people know as pain.

Pretty interesting then, even more so now in light of other indications that Waters' central nervous system was askew (either genetically, as a result of all his huge hits, or both).

 

I thought it was just the two. Sheldon's comment about how he should have cracked Reggie's ribs was amazing.

 

Did any of the young guys here get that

Did any of the young guys here get that same sensation from a huge hit in NHL '94 on Super Nintendo?

 

He probably didn't hit nearly as many training camps as you think. SI has stringers all over the country whose job it is to do the grunt-work reporting. Layden probably did the heavy-hitting (no pun intended) interviews with Stranahan and such, and left it to stringers to chase down the rest. A very good piece, regardless.