Antrel Rolle is the best leader the Giants have had since Michael Strahan.
Jerry Reese made the tough offseason decision that Justin Tuck, a true Big Blue leader long before Rolle arrived, was expendable.
Antrel Rolle is not.
Rolle is entering the last year of his contract, a year in which he will turn 32 in December. Tuck was a fine leader, and showed up big in his contract year, and received a low-ball offer anyway, and is a Raider now.
Antrel Rolle wants to retire a Giant.
And should.
“Just being a part of this franchise, this organization, it doesn’t get any better than this,” Rolle said.
Pay him, keep him.
Rolle was one of the few Big Blue bright spots in 2013, but it is also his intangibles, the force of his personality, and durability that make him indispensable. He is the glue. The Straw That Stirs the Giant Drink.
He is the leader of the Giants because he has rare leadership abilities. He would have fit right in with the Lawrence Taylor-Harry Carson Giants, playing as he does with that dog mentality: Win at all costs.
“My definition of a leader,” Rolle told The Post, “is someone who can go out there and talk the talk upon his peers, and walk the walk. And do a much better job leading by example, and to allow others to follow.”
Since his rookie season in Arizona in 2005, Rolle has missed one game, and none as a Giant.
You know who he has become?
The Giants’ Ray Lewis.
“That’s a helluva guy to be marked after. … Ray Lewis, I think is going to be one of the ultimate leaders ever to play the game,” Rolle said, “and to even be mentioned in the same category as him I think is a phenomenal honor.”
He is the Giants’ Pied Piper. When he talks, Giants listen. He commands respect.
Leaders observe other leaders. Rolle observed Strahan from afar.
“I think he definitely led by example,” Rolle said. “… He led both on and off the field, great character guy … and very passionate about the game.”
Tom Coughlin thought he had a loose cannon when Rolle was signed as a free agent in 2010 and complained about the Giants’ road itinerary.
Now he is Coughlin’s cannon.
“In the way we led, I’ll probably say Tuck is a little bit more country, I’m a little bit more rock ‘n’ roll,” Rolle said. “He was a more silent leader, more go-out-there-and-show-how-I’m-going-to-lead, a more speak-under-the-radar kind of guy, where I’m a little bit more loud, I’m a little more loony, maybe a little more enthusiasm about how I go out there and attack and lead.”
Rolle thinks more injured players should be practicing, and he won’t hesitate to put it on blast for his teammates to hear.
“That’s the one that leads us all,” Stevie Brown said about him.
“ ’Trel’s one person who’s going to tell you something, and he’s also going to do it.”
“If we’re practicing sluggish, he’ll come over and slap us on the head and say,
‘We gotta get going,’ and just a guy that wants everybody to be the best,” former Cardinals teammate and now Giants cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie said.
Rolle is the enforcer in the secondary.
“You notice players sometimes, they brace themselves whenever he’s coming ’cause they know he will hit ’em,” Brown said.
“He’s crazy,” Rodgers-Cromartie said. “He’ll go in there and knock people out. He goes in there sometimes wild and just throw his body around. He’s a guy that’s definitely going to put his body on you.
“Adrian Wilson was crazy too, just a guy that’s going to get after it. But ’Trel ranks among the best of ’em as far as just a true leader on and off the field.”
Rolle is confident he has four more years left playing at a high level. He does, of course, recognize the cruel business side of football.
“I tell people all the time, ‘For some reason, God loves me — I don’t know why,” Rolle said, and chuckled. “But I think he always has his hand upon me. He always steers me in the right direction, and I don’t worry too much. I don’t worry too much about things I can’t control outside of what I can control.”
Pay him, keep him.