Giants pass rusher Markus Golden takes a timeout to tackle some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.
Q: What do you prefer: sacks or sex?
A: Sacks (smile). Ain’t nothing like getting sacks. The feeling you get after getting a sack, man, it’s just different.
Q: Describe the feeling.
A: You get a sack … you hear the crowd yell. You don’t hear the crowd while you’re playing. In the middle of that play when that ball’s snapped, you don’t hear nothing. Then all of a sudden you hit a quarterback, you hear the crowd just yelling. It’s a different feeling, it seems like a different shock wave through your body, you know? It gets you excited.
Q: If I was going to build the perfect pass rusher, what quality would I take from you?
A: The mindset of knowing how to rush. And just hunting every play. My mindset is every play I’m coming after you. You can get 100 rushes, but out of 100 rushes, you never know when it’s gonna be your opportunity to sack that quarterback. You can beat a guy five times in a row. Just that mindset of, “You gotta keep going, keep going, you’re gonna eventually get home.”
Q: Do you hate quarterbacks?
A: (Smile) Yes, I do. On the field I hate ’em, off the field, they’re cool. … I hate quarterbacks … because it’s my job to hit ’em. I gotta hit ’em. One thing about it, if you’re gonna lose a game, me as a defensive player if I lose, most likely it’s gonna be the quarterback’s fault, he’s gonna be the reason why I lose this game. Carson Palmer, he played quarterback in Arizona, one of my good friends, so I don’t hate quarterbacks, I just hate ’em on the field.
Q: Describe your on-field mentality.
A: It’s time to be a dog today.
Q: Who is one quarterback you haven’t sacked who you would like to sack?
A: Only person that I can say that for seriously, if I didn’t, it would be Tom Brady, but I just got him this year. It felt good, man, it really did. You get to sack the best player in the NFL.
Q: Who are pass rushers you like to watch?
A: Robert Mathis, Dwight Freeney, them two guys I start with. Freeney because I watched a lot of him and played with him, and Robert Mathis, once I started rushing the pass in college, I always wanted to watch those guys.
Q: Were they junkyard dogs like yourself?
A: Yes, yes. That’s how they play, just hard-core, play every play with your hair on fire. That’s something Freeney told me out of his mouth.
Q: Why do you think you play that way?
A: First of all, to win. I want to win. I feel like if you want to win, you’re playing like this. And after that, it’s just part of me, man, it’s just part of where I’m from.
Q: Tell me about your upbringing.
A: You come from St. Louis, man, you gotta be tough. You gotta be tough growing up where I come from. Like if you don’t, somebody’s gonna mess with you. You could be a good dude or anything, but one day, somebody’s gonna come mess with you and you’re gonna have to show that you’re tough. It’s just how life is growing up in the inner city I feel like. I don’t have a specific story like, “Oh, this moment made me tough,” it’s always been in me. My dad is like a beast, my mom’s a tough woman, my brothers and sisters tough. We just come from a tough family that ain’t gonna back down.
Q: A knock on you was your arms were too short.
A: It didn’t bother me, it like was a surprise to me, ’cause picture you playing football your whole life, working hard your whole life playing football, dominating bigger guys my whole life with playing football, then you get to the league, go to the Senior Bowl, and my agent hit me up and said, “They say your arms are short.” And I’m like, “What does that even mean?” I didn’t know you needed long arms to play football. I didn’t even know that my arms were short, like who are them to say my arms are short? I never took it too personal because I always knew it’s football.
Q: Is there a chip on your shoulder?
A: My whole life, man, I always had a chip on my shoulder to prove to myself that I can do what I want to do. I always had a chip on my shoulder to go out and be the better man for my mom.
Q: Is your prove-it one-year contract motivation?
A: I’d be lying if I said it’s my motivation, but I can say it adds to motivation. It just makes you hungry, man, to prove yourself, to myself … to prove, “Hey, I know who I am, I just got injured.” Now let’s get back out there and prove it to yourself who you are, man. It’s really to get myself going and go do what I know I can do that I’ve been wanting to do since I was a kid.
For more on the Giants, listen to the latest episode of the “Blue Rush” podcast:
Q: What was the low point after you tore your ACL in your 12.5-sack season in 2017?
A: I had my boy Chandler Jones send me a picture of just chillin’ in the meeting and stuff, and it made me just realize: Man, I’m not gonna be able to do none of this stuff no more. Like I’m gonna miss a whole year of this, I can’t go to meetings and everything. I went hard in the meetings every day. It was more like just not being able to do it no more.
Q: But you had no doubts that you would return to your old self.
A: I knew I was gonna put the work in. I knew if I did, I was gonna die trying to do it, you were gonna have to take me out doing it. I always knew like if I’m not gonna do it, I’m gonna be able to look myself in the mirror and look at my kids and let ’em know, “Hey, I tried. I tried for it, it didn’t work out.”
Q: Compare running back Le’Veon Bell to you when you were a running back in high school?
A: He’s probably a little more calmer than me, a little more shifty than I was. Me, I was downhill, cut type of guy and try to run you over. I could shake you a little bit, but I try to run you over if I have to.
Q: What are your thoughts of Sam Darnold?
A: You watch him on the film, and as a young quarterback, you can easily tell he’s got a real bright future.
Q: Daniel Jones?
A: A real bright future. I’m impressed with really the guy he is, man, coming in here as a leader. You would think that he wasn’t even a rookie, man.
Q: What do you think of this Jets-Giants matchup?
A: I’m excited. I heard it’ll be crazy, I heard the fans’ll be wild. I’m excited to be a part of it, if I go out there and make some plays to make our fans more happier than the Jets fans (smile).
Q: You were teammates at Missouri with the first openly gay NFL player, Michael Sam.
A: Always was a cool dude. Always was himself. Had pride in being himself. Always was a tough guy on the football field.
Q: Nobody on the team had a problem with him being gay?
A: Nobody on the team had a problem at all because, 1) He was a cool dude, but 2) If you did and if you said something to him, you better be ready to fight him. He wasn’t no soft dude.
Q: What drives you?
A: My family, and people believing in me.
Q: How has your 4-year-old son Markus Jr. changed your life?
A: Big-time. My boy was born two days after I got drafted, so he’s been a part of everything with me. Everything. That’s my boy, and I love my boy to death.
Q: How bad was your temper growing up?
A: I didn’t have a bad temper, but never was a guy that wanted to be messed with for no reason.
Q: Wasn’t it your temper that got you kicked out of high school?
A: What happened with high school, I got a little cousin [Kayla]. She was a freshman in high school and I was a sophomore. Grew up with her my whole life. She’s like a sister to me. We were at school and she told me some guy was messing with her, a senior. And I told the senior, “Hey man, leave my little cousin alone, please.” He tried to get disrespectful with me, I just left it alone. The next day, I come back to school, my little cousin’s crying to me in the morning: “He called me a B, he called me a B, cursed me out.” I go up to him: “Hey man, I told you to leave my little cousin alone.” And we start fighting. I got kicked out of school. It wasn’t ’cause of my temper or nothing like that, it’s just because I told somebody stop bullying my little cousin. She’s a little girl, you’re way older than her, she’s a freshman, you’re a senior, and I felt like I had to fight him because he’s messing with my little girl cousin.
Q: That’s how you got to SCOPE (South County Opportunity for the Purpose of Education)?
A: Alternative school. If kids get in trouble in county schools, if you do good there you have an opportunity to come back to your old school. I got kicked out my sophomore year of high school, and I finished the rest of the year at the alternative school.
Q: So that helped turn your life around, didn’t it?
A: Yeah it did, because I didn’t get to play football that year. My mom wasn’t too happy. I always cared what my mom thought about me. My mom, she’s gonna keep it real with you, and she kept it real with me through that process. There was a school across the street that was a high school, and they were asking about me because they were thinking about letting me come play football, trying to get me before I can go back to my school. I can’t remember the teacher’s name who told me, “You’re too good for this school. You get out of here and go finish off what you’re supposed to do.” And my mom told me that from the beginning, but once he told me that it was like a motivation, like, “Dang, man, this man really thinks I’m not supposed to be here.” After I heard him say that, I just felt like, “Hey, it’s time for me to go.”
Q: Before the fight, did you quit football your sophomore year?
A: I was getting playing time, but not as much as I wanted to. It wasn’t no just quit, ’cause my parents won’t let me quit. I had a problem. I had a problem to where I was supposed to go ride back to school with the team after the game, but I rode with my parents. If I wouldn’t have gotten in that fight, I probably would have been back on that field playing that year. But after that fight, it was over with.
Q: Who was your boyhood idol?
A: My big brother [Emmanuel]. He was tough, he just was tough. Was a good dude always, was respectful to my mom, great dude, but he wasn’t scared of nobody.
Q: Give me an example of his toughness.
A: One day, I was real young, he took me to this rec center with him in the neighborhood we grew up in — we were living on the west side of St. Louis. And there was this big old dude, he was a pro boxer, just starting to go pro. And he used to be talking stuff and kind of a playful picking on everybody, and he used to be outside by the playground area boxing people when I was young. And I just remember looking like, ‘This dude’s so big!’ And one day, my brother had an opportunity to go up against him. My brother more of a little guy, not big, but my brother never once backed down from him, never was scared. And I’m looking at my brother like, “Oh my God. That’s my big brother, he ain’t scared!” And that day right there as a young kid I told myself, “Man, I’m not gonna be scared of nobody, I don’t give a damn who you are.”
Q: So what happened?
A: My big brother said, “Let’s go!” They dukes it out, and were swinging on each other, no face shots, and my big brother won it.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Nelly, my mom, Denzel Washington.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: “Friday.”
Q: Favorite actors?
A: Chris Tucker and Denzel Washington.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Any type of chicken.
Q: Describe your involvement with the sickle-cell program.
A: My cousin Jonah, he passed away when he was 10 years old and I was a kid. My dad was hurting from it and all my family was hurting from it. I try to make sure I wear the sickle cell cleats. Anything I could do to help.
Q: Any favorite New York City things?
A: Not that I can say. … If I was to say one thing, playing football for the New York Giants is my favorite thing right now. I just love playing this game, and I’m blessed to be able to come here and be a part of this organization. But after that, it’s a great organization, the people that work here from the public relations to the coaches, it’s just good people that are trying to work hard and make one thing happen.