I always felt like hanging around the pocket was trouble, but the truth is, the great players take the beatings in the pocket and expose themselves -- and that is the real risk.

A lot of what you get done in the NFL is by perception. They perceive you as really talented, and they worry about you. You've got to come out of the locker room with something.

I was such a heavy drinker I was going to die at age 37. Not to mention the drugs. I'm glad to be sober, I haven't missed a thing. A lot of people never get the chance to come back.

I heard black people sing and the emotion was overwhelming to me. The power of that with all the built in sorrow and joy was just overwhelming to me as a little kid. It was the real deal.

I've played more golf with Joe Montana and Steve Bono than I've played with anyone else. We've played a ton of golf. I always tell people; my relationship with Joe was as good as it could be.

I was born and grew up in the Deep South, and I must say it wasn't easy for me. I always marched to a drummer, I had different views about politics and religion and I had them relatively young.

The wins and losses are over for Rice, the football player, who leaves with 38 NFL records. He was the easiest guy in the world to throw the football to, ... You always knew where he was headed.

People don't remember that Sid Gillman was my coach. He was an old crotchety guy, but he was the first one to basically say, 'You can't just run around'... I remember, he literally tied my feet up.

I was a young folk singer, or wanted to be. I really wanted to be a New England folk singer, but they never would accept me. I was always hard to categorize, and people wouldn't know what to make of it.

Everything you do in life is up to you. Part of life is realizing you have much more potential and ability than you'd ever know, but it's up to you to face the fears and unleash that which really drives you.

You can be an astronaut, knowing it can be super dangerous but understand intuitively what the risk issues are. Not having the same usable knowledge about the risk of football, or any line of work, doesn't work.

While it's great for a quarterback to have athletic ability, his goal is to get the ball out of his hand, orchestrate the offense and not allow his ability to stand in the way of the offense running efficiently.

Josh Graves laid down the dobro on that song [The White Trash Song] and he was hot. We went on the road together and we'd get drunker'n hell every night! I haven't had a drink since November, 1979. And I like it.

I don't regret any of the places I went in football. Everything gave me an experience or memories that I'll have forever. We had more success in San Francisco, but it was a great time everywhere. I always had fun.

Peyton Manning, you look at his physical abilities, there are a lot of things that are middle of the road. But his mastery of the data allows him to be ahead. I love watching him because he throws the ball so proactively.

There's some glory years, where if you play long enough and you've figured the game out, and physically you're still healthy enough, there are some years in there where you can really be productive. And those are fun years.

The demands of excellent NFL quarterbacking I always said took every piece of me, emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. It was like it just took it all, and I think that was what was so energizing about it and unreplicable.

I had a guy who went out of way to help me get started and somehow saw something in me. I couldn't get my hands on a real guitar till I was fourteen. I always wanted one from the time I was a tiny kid. Music was bigger than life to me.

So the truth is, if there's a lesson to be learned from mobile quarterbacks, it is deliver the ball from the pocket, which demands mastery of the data that is involved working in the pocket, which is, 'I know everything about everything.'

I always look at the NBA as kind of a muddled mess in the regular season, and then you just get in the tournament, just get in. And then the great teams just get on a roll and play well or the team that is hot gets hot and goes and wins it.

People always want to grab the negative, but that's not my reality. It comes from my dad. He cracks me up the way he always says, 'Suck it up and be a big girl,' to my sister, or 'Suck it up and be a man,' to us guys. That's what I'm about.

My favorite player I ever played was Reggie White. He played so ferociously. What I loved about playing against him was the millisecond you went down, he became your friend and would ask, 'How's your family?' In a way that could feel weird and awkward.

It's so exhausting in the pocket taking shots when you know I can go. I don't want to take that shot and maybe make a bigger play. To dedicate and discipline your mind that 'I have to find a way, that's the only way I can learn... ' That's the challenge.

James Burton was playing some pure roots stuff. Gram Parsons took an interest in that record [in '68-'69] and he admired it. I never had the concept that I'm going to go somewhere and I'm going to have this career. I just really never thought about all that.

I've refined it since [ was living in Beaumont, Texas], but I was just obsessed with the guitar. I remember one day sitting in class and it just came to me how the neck worked. I was enlightened to the scales, and the runs. I just saw it and thought; now I understand it!

I think when you look at the quarterback position, and this mastery of the craft we talk about, it really is an advanced degree. It's like going to med school, or law school, or getting your PH.D. It really is that type of educational effort, on the field and off the field.

I think Tom Coughlin is an amazing motivator. When you look at his personality, you say, 'Oh, I don't know about that.' But there's some ability he has to laser-focus a football team when it's most important. He seems to be a real valuable asset, kind of Knute Rocke almost.

My goal--and this is kind of my own little secret--but when I get married, just to head out and finish football and, and, and be a missionary around the world. Places where Steve Young--not that it's big really that many places--but places where they have no idea about football.

I'm playing a D-28 Martin that I've had about 20 years or so. I've got a '51 Martin and I thought I shouldn't be taking this on the road. So I went down to Gruhn Guitars in Nashville and kind of traded around and ended up with this one. This guitar sounded pretty good as new guitar.

If I was an actor, it would be like a part that was me. It has to be real to me. I have to make it mine. I really enjoy taking a song I feel that way about, and sometimes it can take a long time to come up with just the right touch. I think that's really my greatest talent, interpreting.

I always had a hard time with Nashville. I reluctantly live there. I've mellowed, and it's improved some, in the fact it has more immigrants. There's some real Mexicans there, some folks from India, some of this and that. I'm not satisfied at all with living there. It's a dilemma for me.

I was always drawn to the roots music, bluegrass, blues, early rock - Sun Records, Elvis [Presley]. And I still love that music to this day. Memphis never gets the credit. It's much more musically rich than Nashville ever will be. Nashville manufactured that hokey-hillbilly image way back.

All I cared about was the music, like hearing Townes [ Van Zandt] talking about "For the sake of the song"; it's all that mattered. In spite of me a couple of things happened, mainly the Eagles and Seven Bridges Road. That certainly helped me survive. Joan Baez, Rita Coolidge, and Ian Matthews did it.

There are a lot of guys kind of on the bubble that can either be that sort who turn into journeyman kind of guys that will find a new spot or guys that can make a claim to be in one place for a long time. You can name a lot of names this year, an unusual number. And I think that most of them will be OK.

Fundamentally, if the league is going to have a no-tolerance policy for domestic abuse, if we're going to be a global organization that's going to have this as a perspective, we've got to back it up. We can't be backed into it with a video with more coming out. We have to make an affirmative stand on it.

I had admired Waylon [ Jennings], but I never expected to meet him and get to know him. When I finally moved to Nashville years later, one night I went to a Harlan Howard Guitar Pull thing, and there was Waylon. He started talking about how much he loved my work and how great I was, and I couldn't even get a word in.

If you're playing for 10 or 15 years, you can't every week run six option plays. It can be around. It can be a part of the game, but sooner or later you've got to deliver the ball from the pocket. That's the game. Now, if the game changes, and it's proven a championship can be won from the pistol spread, then I'm wrong.

Just after I retired, Michael Vick came in. And just as background, I really thought the position had changed. I thought the dynamic pass-run, triple-threat quarterback was going to take over the league. And guys like Michael Vick and others would follow and that's what we'd do. But I learned the truth with Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

When was about 16 or 17, I was living in Beaumont, Texas and Carlos Montoya came to Lamar College. I went to see him and I didn't know what flamenco was. But when I saw him play, I was blown away that one man on one instrument could make all that sound. I'd learned a lot, but that made a big impact. I had intuition for it. In about three years I learned most of what I know now.

Brett Favre plays for championships. That's the only reason he puts up with all of this stuff. He's going to start to figure out, if it's true, that the Packers are not going to be competing for championships. The moment that comes into his heart - oh my gosh, the Packers are not going to be able to make it - that's the day he retires. It won't take much once he realizes that's where the Packers are going.

First of all, I wish everyone who loved football could stand in the quarterback's shoes just for a play, because I think it would be tremendously humbling to anyone who loved the game to say, "I didn't -- I had no idea." You can think about what it would be like, and the cameras are getting better at giving that perspective, that one that the skycam comes down and you get a sense of it, but you just -- you don't know.

I saw all that [white trash] growing up in Alabama and Georgia. I had a group of country cousins and we'd go visit them when I was a kid. They lived on a red dirt Georgia back road, in a shack, with twelve kids. Farmers. No electricity, they had a well on their back porch, but they had nothing, yet they were the happiest, freest people I'd ever met. I loved to visit them. Great sense of humor, and they kept up with all the latest music, country, rockabilly, that stuff. Great food they grew in the fields and canned. Happy people.

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