USA TODAY International Edition
For Pierre- Paul, there’s no looking backward
Giants star regains pass- rushing form
EAST RUTHERFORD, N. J. Barely three weeks after the accident that changed his right hand and life forever, Jason Pierre- Paul combed through the history of his Instagram account and wiped out its history of videos. Gone were the highlights of his championship football career, sent to a virtual recycle bin, relegated to a history Pierre- Paul no longer wanted to relive.
“They don’t exist in my life anymore,” Pierre- Paul said. “Maybe they exist in an old football picture, but not in my life. There’s nothing for me there. I deleted everything that I had 10 fingers on. I didn’t want to look and see how I used to do things.”
For most of the year after the July 4, 2015, fireworks explosion that tore through his hand and left him without his index finger as well as a portion of his thumb, Pierre- Paul was nothing like the football player he used to be. But as the Giants approach the most significant games they’ve played since Pierre- Paul helped them win a Super Bowl in the 2011 season, he is again a dominant passrushing force, the NFC’s reigning defensive player of the week.
After 51⁄ sacks, two forced 2 fumbles and a touchdown in back- to- back wins against the Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns, the man they call JPP knows those numbers won’t be nearly as easy to accumulate against the brick wall of quarterbacking otherwise known as Ben Roethlisberger. But the Giants ( 8- 3) hit the road to face the Pittsburgh Steelers ( 6- 5) behind a pressure- oriented defense channeling the best of the franchise’s past.
“He’s hard. It’s hard to take him down. Everybody that plays him knows that,” Pierre- Paul said of 6- 5, 240- pound Roethlisberger. “My progression this week is that I have to play even harder than I normally play. From 110% to 120%, just because he’s not the regular- sized quarterback.”
Nothing about what PierrePaul is doing this season can be considered regular. The explosion that sent him to the hospital in an ambulance could have, and by most odds should have, ended his football career. His right hand is a picture of surgical success, the scar that runs up his right forearm a reminder of how doctors transplanted an artery to maintain blood flow and feeling in his fingers, the grip he uses to shake his teammates’ hands a reminder of how far he has come since turning his arm into a club for the portion of the 2015 season he was able to play.
“They guys were like, ‘ You got a strong grip,’ and I’m thinking, ‘ A couple months ago I couldn’t even grab,’ ” Pierre- Paul said. “Now they’re saying how strong it is.”
Pierre- Paul’s physical prowess is unquestioned, his ability to retrain his body to grip anything from an opposing offensive lineman to a deflected football on display every time he takes the field. Let’s be honest, plenty of defensive linemen with two good hands would have dropped the ball Pierre- Paul plucked out of the Cleveland air last Sunday, the one Johnathan Hankins deflected his way. But there was PierrePaul, gathering it into his chest and taking it 43 yards into the end zone, a vital touchdown in the Giants’ sixth consecutive win.
Yet the story here is more about Pierre- Paul’s inner strength, the will to return from the tragic and gruesome injury, the desire to play staying so strong he recently said of the hand, “You could have taken the whole thing and I would have been out there with a nub just doing it. That is just the mentality I’ve got.”
He spoke about his inner jour- ney, about his belief in a God who wouldn’t have handed him something he couldn’t handle, about how that faith kept him from questioning why this happened to him and how he is grateful his young son will grow up to know how much his dad overcame. This is a man who, at 27 years old, had to relearn how to tie his shoes, how to zip up a jacket, how to write with his dominant right hand and how to handle his knife and fork.
“It changed me a lot,” he said. “I guess in life, we wake up every morning not knowing that we get to take a breath, that our heart is still beating, every second our heart is beating. It just humbled me because I’m blessed just to be here. It’s something that could have been taken away from me and it didn’t, God wouldn’t let it.
“I learned to accept it, but at the same time, it’s remembering that people go through things every day in life. This was unexpected. I would have never thought I would have blown off my finger, maybe get hit by a car or something. But at the end of the day, it was all written. It was meant to happen. I humbled myself. I’m able to do things people said I couldn’t do.”
Before the accident, his response would have been, “I told you so.”
“Yeah, I would have said that,” he conceded.
But since the accident — maybe because of the accident — he doesn’t go there anymore.
“I grew far from that. I’m more mature,” he said.
Mature, but not old yet. If he has proved anything this year, it’s that he has prime years left to play. But whether that happens with the Giants remains to be seen. His $ 10 million contract was arrived at via mutual agreement after the accident and a franchise tag. Another tag next year could cost the Giants almost twice that much, but a long- term deal would have to be in the same expensive neighborhood as new teammate Olivier Vernon, who was signed to a five- year, $ 85 million free agent contract last offseason.
“Hopefully I’m here next year. Of course I want to be, but this is going to be a business decision,” Pierre- Paul said. “Either way, mine is going to be a great legacy. This never has been done.”
Sullivan writes for The Record of Bergen County, N. J., part of the USA TODAY Network.