Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It starts with a whistle and ends with a gun.
Pop knew absolutely nothing about pro football.
I've spent my entire adulthood in pro football.
I played a little pro football, didn't make much money.
Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.
Unfortunately, there are no mulligans when it comes to pro football contracts.
I knew the statistics of playing pro football were 1% of 1%, so I just never planned on it.
When it's all over I might be able to say I've had the strangest career in pro football history.
I'd followed the strange deaths of pro football players for years, sensing something odd going on.
I'm very proud of high school, college and pro football, the strides have been made to make it a safer game.
I had to decide whether I should try to play pro football after high school or try to pursue my powerlifting career.
At many a moment on many a day, I am convinced that pro football must be a game for madmen, and I must be one of them.
I have no ax to grind. I was lucky. I played. How many guys play high school, college football never play pro football?
You want to do Olympics just like you do a pro football game or a basketball game? Be my guest. Watch it all fade away.
I am the only player who has been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and am the second-best player in my family.
I walked away from pro football and a $2.9 million contract with the San Francisco 49ers because I didn't want to develop CTE.
I almost never watch TV, except for '60 Minutes' and pro football. I love Drew Brees, the Manning brothers and the Steelers' linebackers.
Pro football gave me a good sense of perspective to enter politics: I'd already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded and hung in effigy.
When I played pro football, I never set out to hurt anyone deliberately - unless it was, you know, important, like a league game or something.
The only other human endeavor on which there's more 16-millimeter film than pro football is World War II, and we're going to pass that in 2013.
I'm not like some guys who, if the Ravens lose, are ready to jump off the top of M&M Stadium. There are other things in life besides pro football.
You're in pro football, it's kind of interesting, because when you win, you draft last. In college football, you recruit. You gotta go after guys.
This pro football player once sent me 100 teddy bears, asking me to fly to one of his games and go to dinner. I didn't do it - it was just too weird.
In 2014, I bought controlling interest in Pro Football Focus. At the time we had 60 employees evaluating every player on every play of the NFL season.
One of the reasons I never went into pro football was because I wanted my kids to grow up around an academic environment. And that's exactly what we did.
We never knew we'd have kids playing pro football or going to Super Bowls. That wasn't ever a part of our plan in raising kids, so we really feel blessed.
I remember when we were making 'They Call It Pro Football,' which was our 'Citizen Kane.' The first line is 'It starts with a whistle and ends with a gun.'
When I got out of college and signed a contract to play pro football in the USFL, the first thing I bought was a Remington 1100 shotgun and a Remington .30-06.
Pro wrestling is a different animal than pro football and pro soccer. There is going to be a lot of money going out before the bulk of the money can come back in.
Leaving college early to play pro football was the best thing that happened to me. I got to drop the most boring poetry class. Dumbest thing I did was being in that class.
Positive thinking is the key to success in business, education, pro football, anything that you can mention. I go out there thinking that I'm going to complete every pass.
Lombardi, a certain magic still lingers in the very name. It speaks of duels in the snow and November mud... He remains for many the heart of pro football, pumping hard right now.
Everybody who knows anything about me knows all I ever wanted to do is play pro football. But I didn't have the talent, and I got hurt a lot. I'd do anything to be out on the field.
If you're a young kid out there, put away your Twitter accounts if you want to be a pro football player. Somebody's going to hack your account; somebody's going to cause you problems.
I learned the major difference between college and pro football. In the pros, you're up against a top receiver almost every minute of time. In college, maybe one comes along every third game.
Pro football was taking off when I became commissioner, and when a sport's successful and you're its chief executive officer, much of the credit flows to you and you develop a good track record.
A consulting position might work in another profession, but not in pro football. There's no such thing. They give a guy a parking spot and put his name up as a consultant, and in six months, they erase the name.
There was a long stint during my childhood after I gave up on being a pro football player - we're talking sixth grade here - that I strongly considered a future writing and drawing comic books. I have been making stuff up ever since.
Marino was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005, and his name always comes up when the conversation centers on the greatest quarterbacks of all time. But his greatness comes with an asterisk: He never won the Big Game.
I've long been offended by not-so-godly pro football players I've known who showed up for pregame chapel - Sunday-only Christians rubbing the proverbial rabbit's foot - then after victories declared it was 'God's will' that their team won.
People are interested in pro football because it provides them with an emotional oasis; they don't want football to get involved in the same types of court cases, racial problems and legislative issues they encounter in the rest of American life.
Some of the money going to the rookies can now be spent on people who have proved their worth. After all, the average playing life of a pro football player is about eight years and it is only fitting that the veterans get something for their efforts.
I love college football and I love pro football. This is how fair-weathered I am. I used to be a Giants fan, but my son who's turning 12 has really gotten into football, and he likes the Jets, so I totally jumped ships so we can root for the same team.
You have to be able to recognize defenses on your own in pro football. You can't look to the sideline and read some board. You've got to recognize the defense on your own, and then you've got to communicate to your offensive teammates what you want them to do.
I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I never really had a job. I was a football player, then a football coach, then a football broadcaster. It's been my life. Pro football has been my life since 1967. I've enjoyed every part of it. Never once did it ever feel like work.
It's a competitive business, and everybody wants to be the best. And when there's a new guy coming in, and there's buzz about him, 'Oh, he was a pro football player,' you instantly have people that don't like you because they're afraid you're going to take their spot.
On the golf course, playing cards, running to the casinos, betting on college and pro football, it keeps spilling over to the next step, the next step, the next step. I basically started giving people information that I was receiving in the locker room, injury reports.
Without a doubt in my mind, I should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You look at my stats without my USFL stats, and I don't know how you can argue with that. Look at my combined yards. I'm not one to make excuses, so I'll play by their rules and not even count the USFL stats.
I do have great memories from when my pops got inducted. Obviously, knowing him and knowing how hard he worked in pro football for so long and what he sacrificed, the physical side of it, the injuries, and the grinding and now eight years into the NFL you know what hard work that is.
I'm sure there were concussions galore back when we played, but the doctors would just say, 'Shake it off,' or something like that... or 'Come on, you got to be tough... get back in there.' I see so many guys who played pro football in their 50s now who are so debilitated from having played it.