In my 14 years, catching 200 yards or scoring 3 touchdowns in a game, breaking a record - none of those compared to winning the Super Bowl for the first time.

You're only great if you win. I mean, Alexander wasn't Alexander the Mediocre or Alexander the Average. He was Alexander the Great, and there's a reason for it.

I don't want to live in a society where we ask sporting leagues or place of employment to dole out harsher punishment than what the criminal justice system would.

Colin Kaepernick had a... maybe he had an epiphany. Maybe he had a realization that 'I have a higher calling the playing quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.'

If you want to boo, I want you to boo me as loud as you can, because I think that's a sign of respect: You don't boo the bad players; you boo the really good ones.

There's not a throw that Tom Brady can make that Aaron Rodgers can't, but there are several throws that Aaron Rodgers can make that Tom Brady only dreams of making.

Didn't know until my rookie year you could buy chicken parts separate, like drumsticks and thighs and breast. My granny always bought the whole chicken and cut it up.

Ray Lewis is the type of guy, if he were in a fight with a bear I wouldn't help him, I'd pour honey on him because he likes to fight. That's the type of guy Ray Lewis is.

This was a no-brainer, ... When it came down to it, I said to myself, Hey, you can still play, you can still play at a high level and you still enjoy playing. Why not play?

I've got my bell rung, and when I first came in the league, the term wasn't 'concussion,' it was 'getting dinged' or 'had your bell rung.' So I had my bell rung a few times.

When I left my grandmother's home in 1986 headed to Savannah State with two brown grocery bags filled with my belongings, nothing was going to keep me from realizing my dreams.

The NFL is made up of 1,800 players, guys from different religious backgrounds, different upbringings. I love Peyton Manning. But I don't want 1,800 Peyton Mannings in the NFL.

It trips me out when I hear people say, 'Well, I don't see color.' You see color. Now, how you respond and how you handle the situation once you've seen and noticed color is different.

President Trump wouldn't stick to politics, so he got to jump into sports. So I feel very comfortable now, moving forward, jumping back and forth. Sports to politics, politics to sports.

To get down on the ground and get yourself up for an extended period of time at 245 lbs... that takes a lot. When you see those CrossFit guys, none of them weigh 245, I can assure you of that.

The guys that are serious serious about football - your Peyton Mannings, your Tom Bradys - I'm not saying don't advertise or do endorsements dollars. But there's a time and a place for everything.

Of all the four major sports, whether you like Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, maybe you like Bobby Orr, or you like Larry Bird or Tom Brady - Bill Russell is the greatest athlete to play in Boston.

At some point in time, we're going to have to stop addressing the kneeling, and we're going to have to start addressing what led Colin Kaepernick to kneel. That's the issue that nobody wants to talk about.

A lot of problems that are going on aren't going to get better if we don't talk about it. Race is the biggest one. It's a very, very uncomfortable topic because the biggest part of America was founded on it.

You just don't wake up one morning and say, 'I'm going to be a talker. I'm going to be a braggart.' It's something you achieve over the years, and you get better at it. Obviously, I've gotten pretty good at it.

I didn't bother with trash-talking people's moms, wives, or girlfriends. I was like, 'Hold on, man, you mean to tell me you're making $10 million a year? That's $9 million, $999,999 too much!' That ate them up.

I have the utmost respect for Charles Barkley. He was a heck of a ballplayer... When it comes to basketball, please quote Charles Barkley. But when it comes to race in America? Please don't quote Charles Barkley.

I had a persona as a player, and I know this will come as a shock, but I liked to talk. But don't let the persona overshadow the person. The persona liked to have fun. The person knew when it was time to get to work.

Charles Barkley played in an era where he was never the guy. He always had to take a back seat to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isaiah Thomas, because what did they have that he never got? A championship.

My grandma told me, don't get into trouble. I know how hard she worked to take care of her own nine kids and my mama's three. And I just never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to do something that would embarrass her.

I could have never been a high diver or a gymnast because I don't like subjectivity. I love where I'm faster than you,, or I can jump higher or swim faster. I don't want you holding a card before I figure out whether I won or lost.

My grandmother was a very simple woman. She didn't want a whole lot. My grandmother wanted to go to church and Sunday school every Sunday. She wanted to be in Bible study every Wednesday. The other days, she wanted to be on a fishing creek.

I've said numerous times the hardest job in America isn't being a professional athlete. It's not being a matador or having some job that puts your life at risk. The hardest job in America is being black, because it's the one thing you can't outrun.

To say someone is the greatest, I just don't want championships to define that greatness. Because under that theory, Robert Horry is one of the five or six best basketball players ever - he has seven championship rings. We know that not to be true.

For me, having played the game of football, I look at it through a much different lens. I don't look at it from a fan's perspective. I'm always trying to analyze and critique things when I'm watching sporting events. That's why I never have the sound on.

The British are coming, the British are coming! Mr. President! We need the National Guard! We need as many men as you can spare because we are killing the Patriots! So call the dogs off! Send the National Guard, please! They need emergency help! Please! Help!

A lot of guys are going to say, 'Look, if it meant me getting a Super Bowl ring, I'd run right over the top of my brother.' And I would have. But once it was said and done, I would have been very disappointed that I had to get the ring at my brother's expense.

Super Bowl XXXII was a victory made long before stepping on that field in San Diego in 1998. It was earned with my brother guiding me as a kid in Glennville, Ga., and as a seventh-round pick out of Savannah State. Even at the pinnacle, that ring was always his.

You can get in front of the media and say, 'Yeah, I'm working hard.' You can't do it in front of those other 52 guys in the locker room. You can't fool your teammates, because they see you. They see you every day, and they see you more than your family sees you.

I had a speech class in elementary school. And you know how teachers, when a kid is struggling to pronounce a word, used to lead him and say, 'Johnny, sounds like... ? Johnny, sounds like... ?' I said out loud, 'Sounds like Johnny can't read.' Teacher told me to leave the room.

Racism is a disease. Go to your doctor with an ailment, and let the doctor tell you, 'Well, look, I'm not going to treat you; we're just not going to talk about it. It's going to go away.' You would look at him like he's crazy. By not talking about racism, it's not going to go away.

I tell you what: I bet Jerry Jones would not trade places with a 75-year black man in Chicago. I bet Joel Klatt would not trade places with a 30-year old black guy from Chicago or Watts. I bet he wouldn't do that. You know why? It's great to know that I'm white and a male in America.

We have never, ever, in the history of football seen a guy that possesses what Aaron Rodgers possesses. Nobody, no quarterback in history, has the touch, the accuracy, the ability to throw the ball moving left or right, throw the ball from the pocket, throw the ball from different plains.

What I tell people all the time is that bodies are made in the kitchen, not in the gym. You cannot exercise a bad diet. It's just impossible. Unless you want to be the ultra-marathoner or someone like a Michael Phelps that's swimming 70 or 80,000 meters in a week, you cannot exercise a bad diet.

I was born in the 1960s. I came up in the 1970s. I know how race relations were. The thing is, I want to advance the ball and never return to those days again. I want to keep the topic going. I'm going to discuss it. And we're going to make America better. It's my job as a citizen, and I demand it.

Guys would always start by saying, 'You ain't going to get nothing today, Sharpe!' And I'd say, 'Know what? Don't be surprised if your name is on the waiver wire tomorrow. It could have been prevented. But you wanted to go there. So now when you see your name on the wire, you'll know who put it there.'

Most people, they're dug in. 'Michael Jordan is the best player, and there's nothing LeBron can do.' A lot of people dug in that LeBron is whiny and he complains, he jumped teams, he wants all the best players. And once you have your mind made up on a particular topic, there's no moving you off of that.

You can tell the truth, but sometimes you can't always be in your face with it. I found a way to tell the truth and put it in a nice, neat package for people to receive it. A lot of times, you have to put it in a nice, neat box with a bow tie, and when they open it, it's the truth. I think people respect that.

The thing you can't measure is someone's heart, someone's desire. You can measure a 40, his vertical, his bench press, and that might let you know things like, yeah, he can jump high. But desire, his dedication, his determination, that's something you can't measure. That's something you can't measure about Rod Smith.

Growing up on a farm, I saw that if I didn't go to the military or go to school, and I knew my mom and my family wasn't going to be able to send me to school out of their pocket, so it basically came down to athletics. I knew I didn't want to work on a farm. I knew I didn't want to do manual labor the rest of my life.

I'm a big cardio guy. I love spinning, and I do that seven to eight times a week because I have time. What else am I going to do? I don't have a hobby. I don't play golf; I don't restore cars; and I don't have a fixer-upper house that I'm working on. So basically, my day is built around just working out. That's what I enjoy doing.

When I went to the Pro Bowl, I went as a tight end. When I made the All Pro team, I made it as a tight end. When they introduced us and I ran out of the tunnel, they introduced me as a tight end. So how is that possible that now that my career is over, they say, 'Well, he put up stats like a wide receiver?' It's not my fault I was ahead of my time.

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