Freeman: Giants Feagles a leg for the ages
PHOENIX -- When the Giants' Michael Strahan earlier this week said everyone here wanted to be Tom Brady, he erred. I didn't. I wanted to be Chris Hanson.
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| With the way the Pats score, Chris Hanson doesn't punt much. (US Presswire) |
Hanson is New England's punter, which means he gets paid for doing a lot of spectating. Five times this season he punted once, including a playoff game against Jacksonville, and I don't know about you, but that seems like a pretty good gig to me.
Apparently, it doesn't to Hanson, who turned positively prickly when likened to the Maytag repairman.
"You know what? I'm not going to answer any of those questions," he snapped. "This is a team sport, and I'm here to do a job. And my job is to punt the ball and put us in the best possible field position we can get into."
Swell. But that doesn't make him different than other punters in this league. This does: He punted 44 times this season, 61 fewer than San Francisco's David Lee.
So what's not to like?
"Next question," Hanson said.
There isn't one. Common sense says Hanson should be the happiest guy on the planet. He's punting for the world's best football team and holding for extra points, which means he does a lot more holding than he does kicking.
Let's see, part-time punter. Full-time holder. Yeah, I like the idea of that.
What I don't like is the idea of talking it over with Hanson, because there is nothing to talk over with this guy. Punters and kickers typically are among the best interviews in the business, but that group just got cut in half with New England.
Hanson is absolutely, positively the worst interview I found this week.
He seems annoyed, bitter and downright uninterested, and he picked a bad week to go into the jar. But maybe it's just who Hanson is. The Florida Times-Union sent a reporter to Foxborough to talk to him before the Jags-Patriots playoff game, and Hanson snubbed him.
