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By Bob Sturm Jul 19, 2019
19 in ’19 highlights the 19 most impactful Cowboys, Rangers, Mavericks and Stars throughout the history of each franchise. Our staff voted on the top 19 from all four combined lists to create these overall rankings. You can find all of our team lists and profiles here.
When thinking about the legacy of Michael Irvin, one could literally go in an endless number of directions.
He conjures up reactions, opinions and emotions in anyone who ever saw him play. If he played for your team, it’s very possible he was your favorite player. If he played for your rival, you wanted him to stop beating you. He was going to play the way he did until he could play no more. He is a legendary figure who did historic things.
But if I had to think of what he did better than anyone, I land on the way he ran the slant route. It didn’t matter that his opponents knew it was coming, and it didn’t matter how hard they tried to punish him for doing so. He was still going to be there, make the play, move the chains and then tell you all about it. When I was asked to write a piece about Irvin and his legacy, there was no question I wanted to talk to him about that slant route at a depth in which I had never heard him speak. He was generous enough with his time and memories that I believe we accomplished just that.
THE ATHLETIC: What route would you say “made you the most money” in your career?
MICHAEL IRVIN: I use to jokingly tell people I made my money running deep ins and deep outs, but the bottom line is that the most dangerous route I probably would run is a slant route — or what we used to call it back in the day, the “Bang-8.” The Bang-8 is nothing but a deep slant route and all in-cutting routes are the even-numbered routes. 2 is the slant route, 4 the deep in, 6 the curl route, 8 the deep post or what we used to call the Bang-8 route. Those two routes attack the most sensitive area of a defense: The middle. No matter what you do to defend yourself physically, you cannot defend yourself against the middle of your body, if somebody kicked you down below. No matter how much weight you lift, it’s going to hurt if somebody jams your nose up into your skull. You can’t lift enough weights to stop something from happening or hurting, or even in your solar plexus. That middle of your body is just like the defense. So that’s what we attack and why the slant routes and those deep-in routes, the Bang-8 routes, were always the best routes. You can’t even call a route “the Bang-8” anymore. The word bang means there is going to be a bang-bang play, the safety and the ball will get there at the same time. That’s illegal in the game today.
THE ATHLETIC: The Bang-8 is where a ton of your big plays happened in your career. So for those of us who haven’t done what you have done, a “Bang-8 is a basically a post?
IRVIN: Well, it’s not an over-the-top post. An over-the-top post means I’m going to run deep, you’re throwing the ball deep over everybody’s head. The Bang-8 says I’m going to run a slant route 12 yards, and me and the safety are going to meet for the ball at about 18-19 yards — there’s no getting around it. It’s you catching it or he stops the play and you’re getting knocked out. One of those things is going to happen.
THE ATHLETIC: One of your greatest quotes about the slant might have been from your Hall of Fame speech or NFL Films, but it was your reaction to people calling you “fearless”…
IRVIN: Which was crazy … There’s no such thing as fearless. God gave us all fear as a defense mechanism and a warning sign to say, “Hey, wait a minute, maybe this is not healthy, maybe this is not smart.” So, to say someone is fearless is to say he is sick, he’s a psychopath or sociopath or something. The reality is we all have fear. Courage is not saying fear does not exist. Courage says “I overcame the fear.” All guys on the football field have fear. But you have to overcome that fear. There are ways you can do it, things you can do to help you overcome the fear in all walks of life. On the football field, when we called the slant route, there were things I used to do. I remember breaking the huddle and thinking, ‘Man, I gotta run this slant route.’
Maybe we ran it a lot and over there, he (the corner) is waiting, they read tendencies, they know we like the slant route on short yards; 3rd and 7, 3rd and 8, stuff like that. They know we like to run slant routes. They know the tendencies, so I’d be like, “God, they’re waiting over there.” We run a lot over there, you know you’re about to get hit. So, as I break the huddle, my thought would always be, “Aw man here it comes again,” that’s what “Big Michael” said. But, “Little Michael” would say, “We either run this slant, or we run back to the ghetto.” And, all of a sudden, the slant ain’t all that scary. The ghetto was much more scary. I use to tell people whenever you want to overcome something, put it up against a greater fear and you’ll overcome it.
THE ATHLETIC: I think it was the 1993 championship game, when the cameras caught you on the sideline yelling to, I assume, Troy Aikman, “Just throw the slant, and I will go get it. It doesn’t matter the coverage, I promise I will go get it.” That had me wondering what coverage was the best to run the slant against? Did you prefer against man or against zone?
IRVIN: It depends, and now it’s so convoluted because we would have zone-blitzes. It’s so easy to read when you get a free safety-safety blitz and everything, and I have man coverage. Because, if I beat the man, I have a chance for six. But when they brought in all the zone blitzing and all of that, there’s still blitzing and then playing zone behind it. Now it requires a little more thinking through that process. If it’s a man route, everybody is pressed up. Once I catch that slant route, if my guy isn’t tight on me, usually I’m gone. But if it’s a zone blitz and a guy is playing outside, even if I beat my man, I still have the safety sitting out there, and that makes it a little different. I loved running the slant route no matter what the coverage is.
Let me tell you what trips me out about it, because I hear people talk about it all the time and say to the receiver “Catch the ball with your hands. Catch the ball with your hands.” I say, “Yes, try to catch the ball with your hands, but only on a slant route are we allowed to do different things.” Because they’re trying to separate you from the ball in traffic, so my body is tensed up on that “natural fear” thing in the body. Your body will naturally tense up and your hand freezes up; it gets hard. If the ball hits your hands, and your hands are tense, the ball hits the ground.
So what I used to do then is crater a body catch or body catch that slant route, but I would only do it on third downs. Because if I missed the first down, we had second down and third down. But if I dropped second down, we had third down; if I dropped third down, we gotta leave the football field. So I’m like “No, no no,” we aren’t dropping any third-down slants, this is not about a touchdown. On first down or second down, I’m trying to catch it with my hands, break a tackle and run. But, third down, my primary goal is first down. I’m putting a body on that ball. If you hit me right, then when that ball gets to me, all you did was help stick that ball on me. But if I try to catch it in my hands, and you hit me, that ball goes up in the air and probably comes down as an interception. I have broken down that slant route like God broke down H2O and oxygen and all of those things that we need for our body. You need H2O. You need water. You need oxygen. Just like God has broken that down, that these are things you really need, that is how I broke down that slant route.
THE ATHLETIC: That is incredible. I have never heard anyone endorse “body catching” before like that. But it does make perfect sense.
IRVIN: I always said this: I can take the hit. I’ll take the hit, but what I don’t want to do is take the hit for nothing. I come across the middle, and I have my hands in the air getting ready to catch that slant. The ball hits my hands, I take that hit, and the ball goes up in the air. I don’t make the play, but I still took the hit. Or, worse than that, I could take the hit and the ball goes up in the air; I take the hit and they got the ball running the other way on the interception. So I was like, “Whoa, let’s think through this man. Let’s think through this.”
When you come out on third down, and here again, they know your tendencies so you see people start rotating up saying, “Watch Mike! Watch Mike! Watch the slant!” You hear this! You hear this! You hear them saying it on defense, “Watch 88, 88 on the slant.” You’re thinking, ‘It is actually a slant route.’ So you hear it coming, and you just have to get ready to handle it and prepare yourself. So they already know it’s coming and I’m sitting there with arms stretched, and they’re already on a dead beat. That’s usually a recipe for bad things happening to us offensively. That’s when I started coming up with a better way to make sure we secured the play. We secured the first down and made sure we didn’t have a turnover.
THE ATHLETIC: How would you focus on the ball and the first down when knowing a hit was coming?
IRVIN: My wife would always ask me, “How did you catch those balls? Did you see all of those people around you?” I used to say, “I’m focused on the ball.” She would go, “Yeah, you’re focused on the ball, but I’m sure you see all that other stuff and how do you stay tuned in and focused in on that football?” I used to tell people when I got ready to play in games, I would go around and say, “I’m telling you right now, I’m willing as long as you guys are willing.” Because it’s a psychological game, too. When somebody hits you, it hurts them just like it hurts you. Our bodies aren’t built to run as fast as you can and slam into each other. So I used to always go and tell the DBs that I’m playing against, “Hey, I’m just letting you know, where I come from the trade is cool. I’m willing to make that trade. I’m willing to trade the concussion for the reception. Are you willing? ‘Cause I’m willing. I’m willing to trade the concussion for the reception.” They’re looking at you like you are crazy, but I really told myself this. I’m willing to trade the concussion for the reception. So when that ball is in the air, all I’m thinking about is the reception, not the concussion. I know the hit is coming.
So, for Troy’s rookie year we’re playing San Diego and Vencie Glenn was the safety in a preseason game. I had already been telling Troy – you know I want to build this relationship with him – so I had to try let him know, “Whenever you’re in doubt about everybody, just let the ball go and I’ll make the play. I’ll make the play, no matter what, I’ll guarantee it.” I saw earlier in the game that we called a slant route. “262”, we used to call it for a slant route, and I saw Vencie Glenn trying to trick Troy. He’s acting like he’s walking away from me, but he’s looking. I’m like, “Oh God, he’s going to come.” Troy called the play again, and Vencie just starts sprinting. I see Troy backing up getting ready to throw the slant and I said, “Oh man, no, no, no, no.” But, he throws it anyway. I said to myself, “Oh my God! Here it comes!”
I know Vencie Glenn had a beat on it. He was running. I was thinking, “OK, I can get out of the way. This is a preseason game. I can get out of the way. You don’t gotta take this!” But, I had already made the pact with Troy and he was a rookie. See, I had to solidify our union and that’s when I said “OK, if I get out of the way of this hit, and that makes him question my veracity after I told him, “Whenever you’re in doubt, just let it go and I’ll go and get it…” Man, I saw that ball go up, and it was almost like slow motion. I said, “If I catch it, I go to sleep. Ain’t no doubt about it. If I catch it, I go to sleep.” That ball was coming, and I took one last look at the ball and one last look at Vencie. I remember in my own mind saying “goodnight.” I caught it, and, boom, he hit me. He totaled me, but I held onto the ball. And, you know, that’s all that mattered. Later on, I’m coming back to Troy, and I say “Hey man what happened?” and he goes, “You got knocked out.” I said, “I held onto it right?” He said, “Yeah” I said, “That’s all that matters… that’s all that matters.” I held onto it ’cause what mattered was me keeping my word to my young quarterback.
THE ATHLETIC: Is that the biggest sin for a wide receiver? A quarterback is trusting you to cross the face of your guy and not allow an interception on a trust throw. It feels the last thing you would ever want to do is let your quarterback down.
IRVIN: Absolutely. On a slant route, you can’t stop even if the guy is playing deep hard inside where you’re going. Once you go down the field two yards, and he sits down deep inside, I can’t go in the back of him. I gotta get across his face. I’m telling you, I will rip your head off. I will rip your natural-born head off of your body trying to come across your face, if he’s trying to step down inside my slant route. It’s the easiest interception. If he catches it, he’s gone. There’s nobody back there. You’re on the end, so you cannot give that play up. No matter what. You cannot give that play up even when guys are sitting down inside you. You have to get across their face.
THE ATHLETIC: As I understand it, Troy would take a three-step drop on a slant. You would use your third step – your outside foot – to begin your slant in. Are those steps timed up together?
IRVIN: He is taking his third step, he’s letting it go. He’s not counting me out. He’s going to take his third step and let it go. Now, my judgment has to understand that he’s taking three and letting go, so if a guy is playing hard inside, and I want to run outside, then cut across him, then I have to understand the kind of time I have.
I don’t necessarily have to take three steps. Say a guy is extending over me outside shade, outside of me – I know Troy is taking three steps. I come off the ball; maybe I pit-pat at the line of scrimmage. I already have a sense of what kind of time I have because I run three steps, three steps, three steps, so much that I know the timing the quarterback has. If I give one or two fakes at the line of scrimmage, I get ready to step because Troy is getting ready to throw. I can do all of that at the line of scrimmage and then come flat because maybe I didn’t see the safety back there, and I didn’t feel like I needed to get up the field. There are so many variations of it that three steps. Three steps is the base of it. So we all understand the kind of time we have to get off each play.
THE ATHLETIC: For your receiver splits (the particular spot on the line of scrimmage where a receiver will start between the ball and the sideline), is there a preferred split or can you run a slant or another inside-breaking route from just about anywhere?
IRVIN: You have a preferred split but (the opponent) will start reading your splits. In that route and the Bang-8, it was on the outside edge of the numbers. Now sometimes, if I line up on the outside edge and I know I’m playing against a smart guy who watches a lot of film, I’m like “OK, he’s going to be looking for this Bang-8.” So now, sometimes I may go a yard outside the top edge of the numbers. Then, I run a slight diagonal on my stem, so I’m still in the same place I’m supposed to be when the ball is thrown. I can mess with my split at the start of route, and I can mess with those positions as long as I clean it up by the end of my route because Troy is expecting me to be somewhere. I have to be at that place he’s expecting me to be. He expected me on that Bang-8 to catch that ball at 18, 19 yards and maybe a yard inside the numbers. So if I’m going to start that route a yard outside the number, then I got to be a yard inside the numbers. My first two steps would be a little diagonal towards the numbers, then I’m going to straighten it up just to straighten the DB up. Then, boom, out there a yard outside the number by the time that ball is thrown.”
THE ATHLETIC: When we were talking the other day, I asked you if one slant stuck out in your head from your career. You told me it was from the 1992 NFC Championship Game against the 49ers at Candlestick Park. Tell me about what happened there that made it so memorable.
IRVIN: OK. That was on a 3rd-and-8, and that was with a safety blitz. Did you see that coverage? We had the safety deep, and I had the corner playing a little outside off, so it looks like almost a zone blitz. It’s hard to read. Is this zone blitz with a man? Is this a blitz with man (coverage), and the corner is just playing off? So I knew I had the corner, and he’s back and outside. Since I saw the safety deep, I thought, “I’m not going to run a slant across his face and be able to break the whole field, ’cause there’s that safety waiting.”
I figured the guys know they’re waiting on the slant route, because you can hear the defensive guys saying, “Watch Irvin slant! Watch Irvin on the slant!” Even the linebackers are going to try to back up and rush out. With the cornerback, I’m going to take two steps. I’m going to go slower off the line, and I’ll wait on the count. I’ll come a little slower off the line, and then I’ll lean in since he’s so far back. Troy can throw this thing, and he threw it back on my backside shoulder, so when I caught it it was an easy natural spin right back outside. He’s already outside and I’m running the slant, so where do you think he’s going? He’s flying coming down inside because he’s trying to meet me at the slant point. So if he’s throwing the ball to the outside I can swing right on back to the outside and get up the field and get me 15, 16 yards, which is exactly what I did.
THE ATHLETIC: OK, so clearly the slant is your bread and butter through all of this. Everybody on the field – offense and defense – knows it. Now, what are the best counters from the slant for you & Troy? I saw the sluggo (slant and go) against Green Bay in the 1994 playoffs.
IRVIN: Yeah, that was bracket coverage. That’s when you get a corner outside, and you know that the safety is playing inside because they know they’re running that damn slant again. The announcer even said it during that play: “Oh, down here Troy loves to throw to Michael on that slant route.” They saw it coming. I had a corner on the outside, so when I ran, I pressed the corner outside to give George Teague time to come running over. Then I ran towards Teague, Troy would pump and all of those guys would hesitate just for a second, and I’d take it up the field. That’s one thing, the sluggo. The slant-and-go. Or we would run the post corner. If you go back to Super Bowl 27 after I ran that Bang-8 for the first touchdown, I think they were so far inside. I said, “Troy, I got ’em on the post corner.” We came back with it 18 seconds later. That’s the Super Bowl record with two offensive touchdowns within 18 seconds. That’s the only record I have that will never be broken (laughs). Y’all will never get that one.
IRVIN: But on that second route, on that post corner, the cornerback stayed down inside, and when I posted inside he was so far inside. I said, “If I take two more steps, I’m almost coming up to him,” and so I just went out. And, I went out early. I took the corner out early, and I said, “Oh my God.” And when I came out of the corner, I see Troy is throwing. So that throw is going to be late, which is my fault because I was early going to the post, and that throw was going to be late. Instead of taking two steps, I only took one. When Troy let it go all, I could think about – I promise you – was, “Oh my God, this dude is going to intercept that ball. He’s going to intercept my ball. I can’t let that happen.” And that’s why I threw my leg up. I threw my leg up to kick him in his damn head … No joke. I was going to kick him in his damn head so he couldn’t get to that football. But the ball arrived when I was trying to kick him, and I caught the ball. He hits my leg, spins me around and I’m able to land on my feet and spring into the end zone.
THE ATHLETIC: That is beautiful. I want to talk about a couple more of these famous catches of yours. The one you were called for pass interference in the Super Bowl against Pittsburgh, that was also on a Bang-8, right?
IRVIN: No, that was an “88 special” – a post-corner-post. 88 special. We run a post, corner, then back to the post. We had two runners. We had a middle guy running across, so if the safety goes with the inside guy, then I run the post corner to get that cornerback to go to the outside, then Troy hits me right on that second post move crossing the goal-line.
But what happened was that Carnell Lake wanted to stay inside. You know, because they were waiting on the Bang-8. We called the 88 special, so I went in and back out, but Carnell Lake stayed inside and when Troy throws the ball, he throws it on time. When he threw it, I said, “Oh snap.” It don’t matter why (Lake ignored the corner); all I know is that I couldn’t let him get the ball. So I reached behind his shoulder pad and ripped him down and caught the ball. I argued with the ref like, “Why are you calling pass interference? No way pass interference, no way! Pick up that flag! Pick up that flag!”
But, when it all calmed down, I pulled him over to the side and said, “How the hell did you see that?” The ref said, “What? Was that the right call?” I said, “Oh, absolutely, but how did you see it?” So he said, “Why did you just chew my ear off?”
THE ATHLETIC: Were you ever willing to take a penalty to set something else up? Would you intentionally get a flag for a larger purpose?
IRVIN: The only place I’m willing to give that flag up, honestly, is if we got a guy that thinks he’s going to be physical. That’s when I came up with the quote I tell people, “If I want to beat a man, I’ll attack his weakness. If I want to break a man, I’ll attack his strength.” I attacked Darrell Green. I’m bigger than Darrell, I’m more physical. So, let me attack his weakness. His weakness is his physicality, so I’m going to attack his weakness. I played bigger cornerbacks, and I would say, “Oh, okay, let me attack a weakness. I’m quicker than this guy because he’s big.”
But when I attack a guy’s strength, and when I play some corner who thinks they’re physical – maybe because they have been playing against receivers who don’t want any part of the physicality of the game – I then said, “Oh, he thinks he’s physical, when really he has been playing against soft guys. I’m going to show him what physical is.” Once you do, he has nowhere to run. Because if I’m more physical than the guy that made his living being physical, then he’s broken. Not just for the day when I play you this Sunday, but I play you twice a year. I got you the rest of every year now. You see what I’m saying? You’ll be thinking about this every year, so that’s when I started thinking about it. Even the guys that aren’t that physical, if I can get you going to where you’re more trying to show me how physical and how strong you are than playing the game of football, then I can surely draw you into some pass interferences through that method, too.
THE ATHLETIC: How about the first-down celebrations? Were those primarily to wind guys up, too?
IRVIN: Well, if it did, it did. But, I always tell people that Jimmy Johnson said, “Everybody do what you need to do to play your best.” So some of the time, that’s what it took for me to play my best. And if you don’t want me to play my best, stop the play so I don’t get a first down on you. If you let me catch this, and I’m only getting seven or eight passes a game – I know that first downs are so critical to this game. That’s when I came up with that first down thing. I said these are too critical to the game to not have a celebration.
My first first-down celebration, I think, was on a one-yard pass. It was a hell of a pass at the University of Miami. It was incredible, and I caught it off a blade of the grass. I demonstrated it to people again; I said, “Did you see that?” It was crazy. But people were writing, “Is he celebrating after a one-yard catch?” But it’s not that it was a one-yard catch. It was that it resulted in a first down! And if you could focus on just getting first downs – don’t even worry about the whole field, just get some first downs, and you’ll get to the end zone.
When I speak today to companies, I say, “The NFL has it right.” Any great journey that you’re going on – even in life – if you say, “I’m only going to celebrate when I get to the finish line,” then 95 percent of those people will never make it there. But if you start at the genesis of your journey, and you make small celebrations all along the way – like when I get a quarter of the way, I get to celebrate. If I get to 50 percent of the way, I get another celebration. But, man, you bring out small celebrations ’cause those journeys are too long! 100-yard journeys are too long. The NFL has given you small celebrations. They’re called first downs, and if we end up with enough of these, we will end up with a touchdown. That’s just what it is. That is a great metaphor for life.
THE ATHLETIC: To talk about you as one of the finest slant runners of all time, I guess, there is a certain amount of irony that day in Philadelphia that it…
IRVIN: Ended my career.
THE ATHLETIC: Right. Honestly, the replay didn’t look like there was much too it, right?
IRVIN: There was nothing to it. I slow-gamed the slant, Bobby Taylor was playing it a little bit inside, and I thought, “OK, I gotta get across his face.” I gotta get across his face and I catch it, and he kind of just grabs my waist and he’s slinging me around. And just as I’m going down, I’m getting hit. I’m getting ready to get hit, and he jams me into the ground, but it looks like nothing. It’s something I have done in my sleep, sleep-walking. I’ve done that same play over and over and over and over again. I couldn’t believe that now I’m lying on the carpet on the slant route. This is the route I wanted to run every game, and now here it is I was laying on the carpet paralyzed with that same route. So I don’t know what name to put on that, irony or fate. I don’t know what name to put on that but it was strange for me.
THE ATHLETIC: I know this is a loaded question, for sure, but I want to ask it anyway: Do you think anyone has ever run that slant route better than you did for so long?
IRVIN: There’s different ways to run that slant, and people do a lot of different things. You know the San Francisco 49ers with Jerry Rice ran a lot of slant routes, but they used systems to beat systems. They’re using a system against a system, and they’re trying to outsmart you with their system and all that stuff. Our game was man beating a man, and when it comes to a man beating a man on a slant route, I don’t think anybody was better. That’s just the way I thought. Me and Troy, we ran that route as well as anyone. We made that play as well as anybody. And I guarantee, if there’s anyway to determine it, they’ll say we made more slant routes and more plays on the slant routes than anybody else.
By Bob Sturm Jul 19, 2019
19 in ’19 highlights the 19 most impactful Cowboys, Rangers, Mavericks and Stars throughout the history of each franchise. Our staff voted on the top 19 from all four combined lists to create these overall rankings. You can find all of our team lists and profiles here.
When thinking about the legacy of Michael Irvin, one could literally go in an endless number of directions.
He conjures up reactions, opinions and emotions in anyone who ever saw him play. If he played for your team, it’s very possible he was your favorite player. If he played for your rival, you wanted him to stop beating you. He was going to play the way he did until he could play no more. He is a legendary figure who did historic things.
But if I had to think of what he did better than anyone, I land on the way he ran the slant route. It didn’t matter that his opponents knew it was coming, and it didn’t matter how hard they tried to punish him for doing so. He was still going to be there, make the play, move the chains and then tell you all about it. When I was asked to write a piece about Irvin and his legacy, there was no question I wanted to talk to him about that slant route at a depth in which I had never heard him speak. He was generous enough with his time and memories that I believe we accomplished just that.
THE ATHLETIC: What route would you say “made you the most money” in your career?
MICHAEL IRVIN: I use to jokingly tell people I made my money running deep ins and deep outs, but the bottom line is that the most dangerous route I probably would run is a slant route — or what we used to call it back in the day, the “Bang-8.” The Bang-8 is nothing but a deep slant route and all in-cutting routes are the even-numbered routes. 2 is the slant route, 4 the deep in, 6 the curl route, 8 the deep post or what we used to call the Bang-8 route. Those two routes attack the most sensitive area of a defense: The middle. No matter what you do to defend yourself physically, you cannot defend yourself against the middle of your body, if somebody kicked you down below. No matter how much weight you lift, it’s going to hurt if somebody jams your nose up into your skull. You can’t lift enough weights to stop something from happening or hurting, or even in your solar plexus. That middle of your body is just like the defense. So that’s what we attack and why the slant routes and those deep-in routes, the Bang-8 routes, were always the best routes. You can’t even call a route “the Bang-8” anymore. The word bang means there is going to be a bang-bang play, the safety and the ball will get there at the same time. That’s illegal in the game today.
THE ATHLETIC: The Bang-8 is where a ton of your big plays happened in your career. So for those of us who haven’t done what you have done, a “Bang-8 is a basically a post?
IRVIN: Well, it’s not an over-the-top post. An over-the-top post means I’m going to run deep, you’re throwing the ball deep over everybody’s head. The Bang-8 says I’m going to run a slant route 12 yards, and me and the safety are going to meet for the ball at about 18-19 yards — there’s no getting around it. It’s you catching it or he stops the play and you’re getting knocked out. One of those things is going to happen.
THE ATHLETIC: One of your greatest quotes about the slant might have been from your Hall of Fame speech or NFL Films, but it was your reaction to people calling you “fearless”…
IRVIN: Which was crazy … There’s no such thing as fearless. God gave us all fear as a defense mechanism and a warning sign to say, “Hey, wait a minute, maybe this is not healthy, maybe this is not smart.” So, to say someone is fearless is to say he is sick, he’s a psychopath or sociopath or something. The reality is we all have fear. Courage is not saying fear does not exist. Courage says “I overcame the fear.” All guys on the football field have fear. But you have to overcome that fear. There are ways you can do it, things you can do to help you overcome the fear in all walks of life. On the football field, when we called the slant route, there were things I used to do. I remember breaking the huddle and thinking, ‘Man, I gotta run this slant route.’
Maybe we ran it a lot and over there, he (the corner) is waiting, they read tendencies, they know we like the slant route on short yards; 3rd and 7, 3rd and 8, stuff like that. They know we like to run slant routes. They know the tendencies, so I’d be like, “God, they’re waiting over there.” We run a lot over there, you know you’re about to get hit. So, as I break the huddle, my thought would always be, “Aw man here it comes again,” that’s what “Big Michael” said. But, “Little Michael” would say, “We either run this slant, or we run back to the ghetto.” And, all of a sudden, the slant ain’t all that scary. The ghetto was much more scary. I use to tell people whenever you want to overcome something, put it up against a greater fear and you’ll overcome it.
THE ATHLETIC: I think it was the 1993 championship game, when the cameras caught you on the sideline yelling to, I assume, Troy Aikman, “Just throw the slant, and I will go get it. It doesn’t matter the coverage, I promise I will go get it.” That had me wondering what coverage was the best to run the slant against? Did you prefer against man or against zone?
IRVIN: It depends, and now it’s so convoluted because we would have zone-blitzes. It’s so easy to read when you get a free safety-safety blitz and everything, and I have man coverage. Because, if I beat the man, I have a chance for six. But when they brought in all the zone blitzing and all of that, there’s still blitzing and then playing zone behind it. Now it requires a little more thinking through that process. If it’s a man route, everybody is pressed up. Once I catch that slant route, if my guy isn’t tight on me, usually I’m gone. But if it’s a zone blitz and a guy is playing outside, even if I beat my man, I still have the safety sitting out there, and that makes it a little different. I loved running the slant route no matter what the coverage is.
Let me tell you what trips me out about it, because I hear people talk about it all the time and say to the receiver “Catch the ball with your hands. Catch the ball with your hands.” I say, “Yes, try to catch the ball with your hands, but only on a slant route are we allowed to do different things.” Because they’re trying to separate you from the ball in traffic, so my body is tensed up on that “natural fear” thing in the body. Your body will naturally tense up and your hand freezes up; it gets hard. If the ball hits your hands, and your hands are tense, the ball hits the ground.
So what I used to do then is crater a body catch or body catch that slant route, but I would only do it on third downs. Because if I missed the first down, we had second down and third down. But if I dropped second down, we had third down; if I dropped third down, we gotta leave the football field. So I’m like “No, no no,” we aren’t dropping any third-down slants, this is not about a touchdown. On first down or second down, I’m trying to catch it with my hands, break a tackle and run. But, third down, my primary goal is first down. I’m putting a body on that ball. If you hit me right, then when that ball gets to me, all you did was help stick that ball on me. But if I try to catch it in my hands, and you hit me, that ball goes up in the air and probably comes down as an interception. I have broken down that slant route like God broke down H2O and oxygen and all of those things that we need for our body. You need H2O. You need water. You need oxygen. Just like God has broken that down, that these are things you really need, that is how I broke down that slant route.
THE ATHLETIC: That is incredible. I have never heard anyone endorse “body catching” before like that. But it does make perfect sense.
IRVIN: I always said this: I can take the hit. I’ll take the hit, but what I don’t want to do is take the hit for nothing. I come across the middle, and I have my hands in the air getting ready to catch that slant. The ball hits my hands, I take that hit, and the ball goes up in the air. I don’t make the play, but I still took the hit. Or, worse than that, I could take the hit and the ball goes up in the air; I take the hit and they got the ball running the other way on the interception. So I was like, “Whoa, let’s think through this man. Let’s think through this.”
When you come out on third down, and here again, they know your tendencies so you see people start rotating up saying, “Watch Mike! Watch Mike! Watch the slant!” You hear this! You hear this! You hear them saying it on defense, “Watch 88, 88 on the slant.” You’re thinking, ‘It is actually a slant route.’ So you hear it coming, and you just have to get ready to handle it and prepare yourself. So they already know it’s coming and I’m sitting there with arms stretched, and they’re already on a dead beat. That’s usually a recipe for bad things happening to us offensively. That’s when I started coming up with a better way to make sure we secured the play. We secured the first down and made sure we didn’t have a turnover.
THE ATHLETIC: How would you focus on the ball and the first down when knowing a hit was coming?
IRVIN: My wife would always ask me, “How did you catch those balls? Did you see all of those people around you?” I used to say, “I’m focused on the ball.” She would go, “Yeah, you’re focused on the ball, but I’m sure you see all that other stuff and how do you stay tuned in and focused in on that football?” I used to tell people when I got ready to play in games, I would go around and say, “I’m telling you right now, I’m willing as long as you guys are willing.” Because it’s a psychological game, too. When somebody hits you, it hurts them just like it hurts you. Our bodies aren’t built to run as fast as you can and slam into each other. So I used to always go and tell the DBs that I’m playing against, “Hey, I’m just letting you know, where I come from the trade is cool. I’m willing to make that trade. I’m willing to trade the concussion for the reception. Are you willing? ‘Cause I’m willing. I’m willing to trade the concussion for the reception.” They’re looking at you like you are crazy, but I really told myself this. I’m willing to trade the concussion for the reception. So when that ball is in the air, all I’m thinking about is the reception, not the concussion. I know the hit is coming.
So, for Troy’s rookie year we’re playing San Diego and Vencie Glenn was the safety in a preseason game. I had already been telling Troy – you know I want to build this relationship with him – so I had to try let him know, “Whenever you’re in doubt about everybody, just let the ball go and I’ll make the play. I’ll make the play, no matter what, I’ll guarantee it.” I saw earlier in the game that we called a slant route. “262”, we used to call it for a slant route, and I saw Vencie Glenn trying to trick Troy. He’s acting like he’s walking away from me, but he’s looking. I’m like, “Oh God, he’s going to come.” Troy called the play again, and Vencie just starts sprinting. I see Troy backing up getting ready to throw the slant and I said, “Oh man, no, no, no, no.” But, he throws it anyway. I said to myself, “Oh my God! Here it comes!”
I know Vencie Glenn had a beat on it. He was running. I was thinking, “OK, I can get out of the way. This is a preseason game. I can get out of the way. You don’t gotta take this!” But, I had already made the pact with Troy and he was a rookie. See, I had to solidify our union and that’s when I said “OK, if I get out of the way of this hit, and that makes him question my veracity after I told him, “Whenever you’re in doubt, just let it go and I’ll go and get it…” Man, I saw that ball go up, and it was almost like slow motion. I said, “If I catch it, I go to sleep. Ain’t no doubt about it. If I catch it, I go to sleep.” That ball was coming, and I took one last look at the ball and one last look at Vencie. I remember in my own mind saying “goodnight.” I caught it, and, boom, he hit me. He totaled me, but I held onto the ball. And, you know, that’s all that mattered. Later on, I’m coming back to Troy, and I say “Hey man what happened?” and he goes, “You got knocked out.” I said, “I held onto it right?” He said, “Yeah” I said, “That’s all that matters… that’s all that matters.” I held onto it ’cause what mattered was me keeping my word to my young quarterback.
THE ATHLETIC: Is that the biggest sin for a wide receiver? A quarterback is trusting you to cross the face of your guy and not allow an interception on a trust throw. It feels the last thing you would ever want to do is let your quarterback down.
IRVIN: Absolutely. On a slant route, you can’t stop even if the guy is playing deep hard inside where you’re going. Once you go down the field two yards, and he sits down deep inside, I can’t go in the back of him. I gotta get across his face. I’m telling you, I will rip your head off. I will rip your natural-born head off of your body trying to come across your face, if he’s trying to step down inside my slant route. It’s the easiest interception. If he catches it, he’s gone. There’s nobody back there. You’re on the end, so you cannot give that play up. No matter what. You cannot give that play up even when guys are sitting down inside you. You have to get across their face.
THE ATHLETIC: As I understand it, Troy would take a three-step drop on a slant. You would use your third step – your outside foot – to begin your slant in. Are those steps timed up together?
IRVIN: He is taking his third step, he’s letting it go. He’s not counting me out. He’s going to take his third step and let it go. Now, my judgment has to understand that he’s taking three and letting go, so if a guy is playing hard inside, and I want to run outside, then cut across him, then I have to understand the kind of time I have.
I don’t necessarily have to take three steps. Say a guy is extending over me outside shade, outside of me – I know Troy is taking three steps. I come off the ball; maybe I pit-pat at the line of scrimmage. I already have a sense of what kind of time I have because I run three steps, three steps, three steps, so much that I know the timing the quarterback has. If I give one or two fakes at the line of scrimmage, I get ready to step because Troy is getting ready to throw. I can do all of that at the line of scrimmage and then come flat because maybe I didn’t see the safety back there, and I didn’t feel like I needed to get up the field. There are so many variations of it that three steps. Three steps is the base of it. So we all understand the kind of time we have to get off each play.
THE ATHLETIC: For your receiver splits (the particular spot on the line of scrimmage where a receiver will start between the ball and the sideline), is there a preferred split or can you run a slant or another inside-breaking route from just about anywhere?
IRVIN: You have a preferred split but (the opponent) will start reading your splits. In that route and the Bang-8, it was on the outside edge of the numbers. Now sometimes, if I line up on the outside edge and I know I’m playing against a smart guy who watches a lot of film, I’m like “OK, he’s going to be looking for this Bang-8.” So now, sometimes I may go a yard outside the top edge of the numbers. Then, I run a slight diagonal on my stem, so I’m still in the same place I’m supposed to be when the ball is thrown. I can mess with my split at the start of route, and I can mess with those positions as long as I clean it up by the end of my route because Troy is expecting me to be somewhere. I have to be at that place he’s expecting me to be. He expected me on that Bang-8 to catch that ball at 18, 19 yards and maybe a yard inside the numbers. So if I’m going to start that route a yard outside the number, then I got to be a yard inside the numbers. My first two steps would be a little diagonal towards the numbers, then I’m going to straighten it up just to straighten the DB up. Then, boom, out there a yard outside the number by the time that ball is thrown.”
THE ATHLETIC: When we were talking the other day, I asked you if one slant stuck out in your head from your career. You told me it was from the 1992 NFC Championship Game against the 49ers at Candlestick Park. Tell me about what happened there that made it so memorable.
IRVIN: OK. That was on a 3rd-and-8, and that was with a safety blitz. Did you see that coverage? We had the safety deep, and I had the corner playing a little outside off, so it looks like almost a zone blitz. It’s hard to read. Is this zone blitz with a man? Is this a blitz with man (coverage), and the corner is just playing off? So I knew I had the corner, and he’s back and outside. Since I saw the safety deep, I thought, “I’m not going to run a slant across his face and be able to break the whole field, ’cause there’s that safety waiting.”
I figured the guys know they’re waiting on the slant route, because you can hear the defensive guys saying, “Watch Irvin slant! Watch Irvin on the slant!” Even the linebackers are going to try to back up and rush out. With the cornerback, I’m going to take two steps. I’m going to go slower off the line, and I’ll wait on the count. I’ll come a little slower off the line, and then I’ll lean in since he’s so far back. Troy can throw this thing, and he threw it back on my backside shoulder, so when I caught it it was an easy natural spin right back outside. He’s already outside and I’m running the slant, so where do you think he’s going? He’s flying coming down inside because he’s trying to meet me at the slant point. So if he’s throwing the ball to the outside I can swing right on back to the outside and get up the field and get me 15, 16 yards, which is exactly what I did.
THE ATHLETIC: OK, so clearly the slant is your bread and butter through all of this. Everybody on the field – offense and defense – knows it. Now, what are the best counters from the slant for you & Troy? I saw the sluggo (slant and go) against Green Bay in the 1994 playoffs.
IRVIN: Yeah, that was bracket coverage. That’s when you get a corner outside, and you know that the safety is playing inside because they know they’re running that damn slant again. The announcer even said it during that play: “Oh, down here Troy loves to throw to Michael on that slant route.” They saw it coming. I had a corner on the outside, so when I ran, I pressed the corner outside to give George Teague time to come running over. Then I ran towards Teague, Troy would pump and all of those guys would hesitate just for a second, and I’d take it up the field. That’s one thing, the sluggo. The slant-and-go. Or we would run the post corner. If you go back to Super Bowl 27 after I ran that Bang-8 for the first touchdown, I think they were so far inside. I said, “Troy, I got ’em on the post corner.” We came back with it 18 seconds later. That’s the Super Bowl record with two offensive touchdowns within 18 seconds. That’s the only record I have that will never be broken (laughs). Y’all will never get that one.
IRVIN: But on that second route, on that post corner, the cornerback stayed down inside, and when I posted inside he was so far inside. I said, “If I take two more steps, I’m almost coming up to him,” and so I just went out. And, I went out early. I took the corner out early, and I said, “Oh my God.” And when I came out of the corner, I see Troy is throwing. So that throw is going to be late, which is my fault because I was early going to the post, and that throw was going to be late. Instead of taking two steps, I only took one. When Troy let it go all, I could think about – I promise you – was, “Oh my God, this dude is going to intercept that ball. He’s going to intercept my ball. I can’t let that happen.” And that’s why I threw my leg up. I threw my leg up to kick him in his damn head … No joke. I was going to kick him in his damn head so he couldn’t get to that football. But the ball arrived when I was trying to kick him, and I caught the ball. He hits my leg, spins me around and I’m able to land on my feet and spring into the end zone.
THE ATHLETIC: That is beautiful. I want to talk about a couple more of these famous catches of yours. The one you were called for pass interference in the Super Bowl against Pittsburgh, that was also on a Bang-8, right?
IRVIN: No, that was an “88 special” – a post-corner-post. 88 special. We run a post, corner, then back to the post. We had two runners. We had a middle guy running across, so if the safety goes with the inside guy, then I run the post corner to get that cornerback to go to the outside, then Troy hits me right on that second post move crossing the goal-line.
But what happened was that Carnell Lake wanted to stay inside. You know, because they were waiting on the Bang-8. We called the 88 special, so I went in and back out, but Carnell Lake stayed inside and when Troy throws the ball, he throws it on time. When he threw it, I said, “Oh snap.” It don’t matter why (Lake ignored the corner); all I know is that I couldn’t let him get the ball. So I reached behind his shoulder pad and ripped him down and caught the ball. I argued with the ref like, “Why are you calling pass interference? No way pass interference, no way! Pick up that flag! Pick up that flag!”
But, when it all calmed down, I pulled him over to the side and said, “How the hell did you see that?” The ref said, “What? Was that the right call?” I said, “Oh, absolutely, but how did you see it?” So he said, “Why did you just chew my ear off?”
THE ATHLETIC: Were you ever willing to take a penalty to set something else up? Would you intentionally get a flag for a larger purpose?
IRVIN: The only place I’m willing to give that flag up, honestly, is if we got a guy that thinks he’s going to be physical. That’s when I came up with the quote I tell people, “If I want to beat a man, I’ll attack his weakness. If I want to break a man, I’ll attack his strength.” I attacked Darrell Green. I’m bigger than Darrell, I’m more physical. So, let me attack his weakness. His weakness is his physicality, so I’m going to attack his weakness. I played bigger cornerbacks, and I would say, “Oh, okay, let me attack a weakness. I’m quicker than this guy because he’s big.”
But when I attack a guy’s strength, and when I play some corner who thinks they’re physical – maybe because they have been playing against receivers who don’t want any part of the physicality of the game – I then said, “Oh, he thinks he’s physical, when really he has been playing against soft guys. I’m going to show him what physical is.” Once you do, he has nowhere to run. Because if I’m more physical than the guy that made his living being physical, then he’s broken. Not just for the day when I play you this Sunday, but I play you twice a year. I got you the rest of every year now. You see what I’m saying? You’ll be thinking about this every year, so that’s when I started thinking about it. Even the guys that aren’t that physical, if I can get you going to where you’re more trying to show me how physical and how strong you are than playing the game of football, then I can surely draw you into some pass interferences through that method, too.
THE ATHLETIC: How about the first-down celebrations? Were those primarily to wind guys up, too?
IRVIN: Well, if it did, it did. But, I always tell people that Jimmy Johnson said, “Everybody do what you need to do to play your best.” So some of the time, that’s what it took for me to play my best. And if you don’t want me to play my best, stop the play so I don’t get a first down on you. If you let me catch this, and I’m only getting seven or eight passes a game – I know that first downs are so critical to this game. That’s when I came up with that first down thing. I said these are too critical to the game to not have a celebration.
My first first-down celebration, I think, was on a one-yard pass. It was a hell of a pass at the University of Miami. It was incredible, and I caught it off a blade of the grass. I demonstrated it to people again; I said, “Did you see that?” It was crazy. But people were writing, “Is he celebrating after a one-yard catch?” But it’s not that it was a one-yard catch. It was that it resulted in a first down! And if you could focus on just getting first downs – don’t even worry about the whole field, just get some first downs, and you’ll get to the end zone.
When I speak today to companies, I say, “The NFL has it right.” Any great journey that you’re going on – even in life – if you say, “I’m only going to celebrate when I get to the finish line,” then 95 percent of those people will never make it there. But if you start at the genesis of your journey, and you make small celebrations all along the way – like when I get a quarter of the way, I get to celebrate. If I get to 50 percent of the way, I get another celebration. But, man, you bring out small celebrations ’cause those journeys are too long! 100-yard journeys are too long. The NFL has given you small celebrations. They’re called first downs, and if we end up with enough of these, we will end up with a touchdown. That’s just what it is. That is a great metaphor for life.
THE ATHLETIC: To talk about you as one of the finest slant runners of all time, I guess, there is a certain amount of irony that day in Philadelphia that it…
IRVIN: Ended my career.
THE ATHLETIC: Right. Honestly, the replay didn’t look like there was much too it, right?
IRVIN: There was nothing to it. I slow-gamed the slant, Bobby Taylor was playing it a little bit inside, and I thought, “OK, I gotta get across his face.” I gotta get across his face and I catch it, and he kind of just grabs my waist and he’s slinging me around. And just as I’m going down, I’m getting hit. I’m getting ready to get hit, and he jams me into the ground, but it looks like nothing. It’s something I have done in my sleep, sleep-walking. I’ve done that same play over and over and over and over again. I couldn’t believe that now I’m lying on the carpet on the slant route. This is the route I wanted to run every game, and now here it is I was laying on the carpet paralyzed with that same route. So I don’t know what name to put on that, irony or fate. I don’t know what name to put on that but it was strange for me.
THE ATHLETIC: I know this is a loaded question, for sure, but I want to ask it anyway: Do you think anyone has ever run that slant route better than you did for so long?
IRVIN: There’s different ways to run that slant, and people do a lot of different things. You know the San Francisco 49ers with Jerry Rice ran a lot of slant routes, but they used systems to beat systems. They’re using a system against a system, and they’re trying to outsmart you with their system and all that stuff. Our game was man beating a man, and when it comes to a man beating a man on a slant route, I don’t think anybody was better. That’s just the way I thought. Me and Troy, we ran that route as well as anyone. We made that play as well as anybody. And I guarantee, if there’s anyway to determine it, they’ll say we made more slant routes and more plays on the slant routes than anybody else.