Markus Golden is an expert on crunching a quarterback with a hit to take away his breath.
Some numbers-crunching of Giants history takes Golden’s breath away.
Golden needs just one sack in the final two games to become the first Giants linebacker with 10 in a season since Lawrence Taylor’s final full season in 1990. Taylor retired after 1993.
What? How can that be? Double-check the facts! (It’s true.)
“That’s pretty cool because you look up to guys before you,” Golden told The Post. “Who doesn’t look up to Lawrence Taylor? If you rush the passer, you’ve watched Lawrence Taylor before. For him to show me the way, then I get the opportunity to come up here and do it too, that’s a big deal. I appreciate being in this position.”
Taylor recently was on NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football” and said the Giants have “no identity” right now.
The Giants spent most of this century playing a 4-3 defense, in which the pass-rushers are defensive ends like Michael Strahan, Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora and Jason Pierre-Paul, and linebackers have other primary responsibilities. It has been five seasons since Pierre-Paul was the last Giant at any position to reach 10 sacks.
The switch to a 3-4 with outside linebackers firing off the edges when general manager Dave Gettleman, coach Pat Shurmur and coordinator James Bettcher came on board was ill-suited for the personnel last season, so the Giants targeted Golden in free agency because he had a 12.5-sack season under Bettcher with the 2016 Cardinals.
“Anybody who doesn’t want to get double-digit sacks, you shouldn’t be rushing the passer,” Golden said. “If I’m on the field, I want to be able to make plays for my team. I feel like that’s another way to be able to make plays. It shows you are out there competing. … Of course, I’ve got pride and I want to be able to do that.”
Golden already would have 10 sacks, but he has been the victim of some bad luck, with full sacks changed to half-sacks upon NFL game film review by Elias Sports Bureau. His final two targets are rookie Dwayne Haskins of the Redskins and Carson Wentz of the Eagles.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for young quarterbacks coming into the league because I know it’s hard,” Golden said.
“You can tell Haskins put in the work it takes to be a NFL quarterback from when we first played him [Week 4] to now. He looks like a totally different player. They’ve got coaches drawing up some good plays for him to get the ball out quick, get comfortable. He’s showing he has the [big] arm everybody was talking about.”
Golden proved this season he is recovered from the ACL injury that marred his final two seasons in Arizona.
One of the Giants’ biggest decisions of the offseason is whether to re-sign Golden to a big multi-year deal or let go of the best pass-rusher on a defense desperate to generate even more pressure.
“I’ve put in a lot of work to get to this point,” Golden said. “I’m in going in with the same mindset. As a guy who’s been hurt before, I just want to finish strong.”
Tight end Rhett Ellison (concussion) will miss a fifth straight game. He practiced fully Wednesday, but was limited the past two days.
Right tackle Mike Remmers was signed as a one-year stopgap coming off back surgery, partly because he played in other organizations for Gettleman and Shurmur. His is a position the Giants will look to upgrade through free agency and the draft, but offensive line coach Hal Hunter doesn’t want to overlook Remmers’ contributions.
“It’s been a long time since he’s given up,” Hunter said. “He just overachieves every time he’s in the game. He’s going to get his job done or die trying.”
“He’s much more productive than we probably thought he was going to be because going into the season, we thought it was going to be Chad Wheeler. I don’t even know what zip code he’s in right now.”
Wheeler is on the Seahawks’ practice squad.
