The Rookies

Among the NFL rumors going around this week has been a story reporting th, based on recent comments he made, New York Giants WR Amani Toomer will not be coming back to the team next season. This is not a certainty and there’s no word yet on whether Toomer will retire or close out his career with another team, a la Isaac Bruce’s current stint with the 49ers or Jerry Rice playing his final seasons with the Raiders and the Seahawks. Certainly, Toomer wasn’t the flashiest or best player on his team or at his position.

When he was first drafted, he was mostly used more for his excellent kickoff returning abilities than as a regular wideout. He was neither as dramatic a player nor as prone to causing drama as two of his more renowned teammates, Jeremy Shockey and Plaxico Burress. Even early on in his career, back when the Giants changed QBs halfway through every season, he was overshadowed by Tiki Barber and Michael Strahan. He holds the franchise’s career receptions record but that’s frankly as much a testament to his longevity as his his pass-catching abilities. Still, it feels extremely weird to think of watching a Giants game next year without him on the roster. And that’s because of all the players on the first team I ever actively rooted for, the 1997 New York Giants, Amani Toomer is the only player still on the team-maybe even the only one still playing (I forget whether or not the G-Men had yet signed Brad Maynard). When I first got re-interested in sports two or three years ago, one of the first things I found was that many of the players I had grown up watching were either retired or seasoned veterans about to retire. A look at the current NFL broadcasting teams for the major broadcast and sports networks reveals a lot of these players: Troy Aikman, Jerome Bettis, Tony Siragusa, Michael Strahan, Tony Boselli, Steve Tasker, Emmitt Smith, the list goes on and on. I suppose it’s cool being old enough now to have watched an entire generation of athletes play out their career but it’s also profoundly weird, especially since the situations that sports are in when we first follow them, whether good or bad. There are times when I look at the standings, see a team that sucked when I first followed sports, like the Ducks, the Pistons, the Phillies, or the Chargers in first place or teams that were really good when I was 7 or 8, like the 49ers, the Braves, the Knicks, or the Avalanche, in the cellar and I still have to do a double take. It also raises the question of just exactly who you were rooting for in the first place, the team itself or that particular group of players who happened to be on the team at the time. As it happens, I’ve continued to root for the Giants and it’s certainly been a lot of fun rooting for a team that actually wins postseason games but it’s definitely bittersweet watching Amani Toomer, Howard Cross, Tiki Barber, Philippi Sparks, Michael Strahan, Jason Sehorn et al. hang up the cleats for good.