A Football Player Quotes & Sayings

At a play-off game with the Chargers, goose bumps ran down my arms as I rushed through the smoke-filled tunnel onto the field. The energy and voices of 70,000 screaming fans can turn even a veteran player's determined squint into the wide eyes of a child on Christmas morning.
While the cheerleaders performed and urged on the crowd, running back Danny Woodhead turned to me. "Can you believe we get to do this? — Jake Byrne

Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence. — Bobby Charlton

I feel fortunate that there was a place like the CFL where I could hone my skill and become a consistent football player and have a nice career. — Darren Flutie

Not much of what he said was original. What made him unique was the fact
that he had no sense of detachment at all. He was like the fanatical football fan who
runs onto the field and tackles a player. He saw life as the Big Game, and the whole
of mankind was divided into two teams
Sala's Boys, and The Others. The stakes
were fantastic and every play was vital
and although he watched with a nearly
obsessive interest, he was very much the fan, shouting unheard advice in a crowd of
unheard advisors and knowing all the while that nobody was paying any attention to
him because he was not running the team and never would be. And like all fans he
was frustrated by the knowledge that the best he could do, even in a pinch, would be
to run onto the field and cause some kind of illegal trouble, then be hauled off by
guards while the crowd laughed. — Hunter S. Thompson

Have we become a cupcake league? We already have better helmets and gear. Wonder how the old school players feel about this. Not in the back of minds when talking about 18 game season so let's play football please ... Even guys using shoulders to hit are getting flagged for helmet-to-helmet. Defense is getting sloppy because guys are avoiding fines and will get worse if suspending comes into play. — Phillip Daniels

I prefer to win titles with the team ahead of individual awards or scoring more goals than anyone else. I'm more worried about being a good person than being the best football player in the world. When all this is over, what are you left with? When I retire, I hope I am remembered for being a decent guy. — Lionel Messi

I make my practices real hard because if a player is a quitter, I want him to quit in practice, not in a game. — Bear Bryant

Substitution is a true test of strength. The real performance of a player is seen not only during playing time but also and more especially when the player is substituted. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Behind every footballing tough guy there lurks a mincing aesthete with a love of art for art's sake, football for football's sake. A win without art is somehow less than a victory; less, almost, than a beautiful defeat. In football, the romantic and the pragmatist are ever at war in the same breast. Beauty, it must be understood here, is not Barcelona's aim but their method. And last night they were ready to use this method at every opportunity - quick-fire passing of wit and purpose in the danger areas, seeking always to produce an unlooked-for player in a position of threat. — Simon Barnes

Just because I'm undersized and under-this and under-that, I've still been a good football player since I was little. — Wes Welker

Football is a game for trained apes. That, in fact, is what most of the players are
retarded gorillas wearing helmets and uniforms. The only thing more debased is the surrounding mob of drunken monkeys howling the gorillas on. — Edward Abbey

when a football player steps on a field, he should do it all. I realize a great running back doesn't like to play defense, but life isn't based on what you like. If everyone did what he liked to do, we'd be in real trouble. — Brian Curtis

There is an old saying about the strength of the wolf is the pack, and I think there is a lot of truth to that. On a football team, it's not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together. — Bill Belichick

I always say to my people, 'If you don't sell a Ferrari to a football player, you make a big present to me.' Really. Because they buy to just show off. I don't like. — Luca Cordero Di Montezemolo

My favorite sport is football. I'm a die hard Steelers fan. Favorite players were Hines Ward and Greg Lloyd. — Anthony Jeselnik

The linesman flagged initially because he thought I was an Oldham player. Fair enough, I did have a replica shirt on - but I also have a big furry head. — Kevin Williams

I'm a football player by trade. That's what I do, ... So I did everything I could to make myself a football player again. — Tedy Bruschi

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. — John Madden

I'm a championship handball player. I'm a championship softball and baseball player. I used to be an extremely talented center in high school in football. I also dabbled in lacrosse and soccer. I'm really good at billiards, darts, shuffleboard. — Action Bronson

Women will not talk about football unless one of them is in love with a football player, and then suddenly you discover that they know everything that is to be known about it. — Jeanne Moreau

If we can take young people who excel at the highest levels, put them on the same kind of pedestal as the all-state basketball player and the all-state football player, and begin to get the same kind of recognition, it will have a profound effect, and we are finding that it does. — Ben Carson

When I was young, all the books were about a Mary Jane and the football player and the prom and ending up with the quiet guy and making your mom happy. — S.E. Hinton

I'm Michael Sam, I'm a football player, and I'm gay. — Michael Sam

It's easier to date a football player for sure. Football players have one game a week, and they practice every day, but they're all at home. In basketball, they're on the road all the time. — Khloe Kardashian

If you identify yourself as a great football player, anytime anyone challenges that, you're going to have some kind of problem. — Ricky Williams

This kind of directing, I think, is very similar to being a football coach. You prepare your players and place them in the right places, but once the game is on, there's nothing much you can do - you can smoke a cigarette or get nervous, but you can't do much. — Abbas Kiarostami

I have always been an outstanding football player, I have always had uncanny abilities, great arm strength, an immense ability to play the game from a quarterback standpoint. The problem was that I wasn't given the liberty to do certain things when I was young. — Michael Vick

A football match should be decided by an action of play. Not some contrived process whose end result is to mark a fine player such as Bossis, Baresi or Baggio for the rest of his career. — Michel Patini

If I stayed a football player, my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is, my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports, but I found I could have a more profound impact on people. — William Petersen

I stopped looking around when I heard a soft "mew" and I looked toward Tate to see he was crouched. He straightened and turned to me.
I froze and stared.
Tatum Jackson, ex-pro football player, ex-cop, now bartender/bounty hunter, tall, beautiful and more man than I'd ever experienced in my life was standing on the edge of his kitchen holding a cat.
And it wasn't just any cat and he wasn't just holding it. He was cradling it. — Kristen Ashley

People like to focus on a narrow stereotype, like if we didn't have football then we wouldn't have made it, ... The reality is, there are a lot of football players like me who came out of the middle class. — Jonathan Vilma

It took me a couple years to get over the stereotype I was letting myself get caught up on, being a football player trying to start a career in music. — Sam Hunt

There were a couple of years when I wanted to be a football player, but I really always wanted to be a singer. — Tom Wopat

A Redskin is a football player. — Daniel Snyder

As a child, I had a deck of Marvel top trumps. You can get top trumps with racing cars, or fighter planes, or football players ... I had all of the Marvel superheroes and super-villains you could get, and I used to play them with my friends. They were all listed according to their height and weight and agility and their super-powers. — Tom Hiddleston

I think if I were a college professor, no one would say I was uncomfortable about being shy because that might be expected. But I think because of people's stereotypes, they think of a football player as someone who is very outgoing and I'm not. — Ricky Williams

I want to be a top-flight football player, so I lead the life that enables me to be that type of player. I prefer to be seen in a decent light rather than an indecent one. — Michael Owen

When I was a child I had a dream to become a football player. I always played as I played when I was a child. I tried to improve. I never dreamt of becoming a professional football player, I dreamed just to play with the best players in the best team. I never dreamed to be paid to play. I would have paid to play an FA Cup Final in front of 80,000 people in Wembley. I just tried to play the wonderful game that football is. So, I hope young players will still have this dream. — Eric Cantona

Making the effort to improve as a human being is what Coach Lombardi was all about. He was able to see the gap between where we were and what we could become-both as football players and as people. And he felt it was his God-given responsibility to close that gap. — Jerry Kramer

Choose the best player for every position, and you'll end up not with a strong XI, but with 11 strong 1's. — Johan Cruijff

If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be. — Bill Shankly

I was not a very good football player when I started out. — Lynn Swann

As a professional, as a person, and as a player, I think he's fantastic. It's like he's dancing the tango. I just love how he plays football so elegantly. To me, Andres is Don Andres. — Dani Alves

The NFL determines your worth as a player, but only God knows your true worth. Players work long and hard through pain and suffering, injuries, and pushing themselves further than they imagined going - then poof ! A dream is gone. That kind of treatment can really mess with one's self worth. Getting cut can be deemed a failure, the loss of a lifetime goal.
Thankfully, as Christians our worth is not determined by mistakes we've made, either accidentally or by stupid stuff we've purposely done. Neither is it determined by what anyone else thinks. Our worth is determined by what Jesus Christ has already done. — Jake Byrne

I realised I'd been spoiled at Liverpool. We were used to winning. In Italy I grew up as a person. I didn't enjoy the football, mind. It was very defensive, but I became a better player because of the work I had to do around the box. Off the pitch, I learned about what to eat and what to drink to be successful, and I learned about life. — Ian Rush

Tony Cottee once played in all four divisions in one season. Cottee started 2000-01 at Leicester City, where he made a couple of Premiership appearances as a sub before being released to Norwich, in what was then Division One. In November the chance to be player-manager of Barnet came up and soon Cottee was playing in Division Three, but alas it did not work out. By March he was again looking for work and found it, with two sub appearances, at Millwall in Division Two. — Phil Cornwell

I went to a school in Miami that seemed like a private country club. The whole cheerleader, football player, clique-y thing there was terrifying. Those people were so scary. They're the scariest kinds of people because they are idolized by their peers. They have everything, they have money, and they're just mean-spirited. It's crazy. — Zoe Kravitz

When you spend a lot of money on one player, you want him to prove himself, but the way football works, one day you can be good, the next you can be bad, and the next after that, you can be very bad. I have come to Manchester City to work very hard and to help my friends make Manchester City great. — Yaya Toure

I find it embarrassing when people compare me to Maradona. How can they? There is only one Maradona. People who say this just have no idea, they don't know what they are talking about. Diego was a complete one-off who will never have an equal on the football pitch. No-one, I repeat no-one, could have transformed teams like he did. Maradona was the world's greatest-ever player while I'm just an apprentice. — Sergio Aguero

I'm definitely not a football player, but I can play one for a season. — Nikki Ziering

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. — Adam Ross

I have seen the player who will inherit my place in Argentine football and his name is Messi. Messi is a genius. — Diego Maradona

Once a player joins our team, our priority is to teach him, not worry about the player we didn't select. — Tony Dungy

My fellow players are sometimes occupying the spaces I want to play in. That forces me to adjust my runs, based on the position of my fellow players. Unfortunately, they're often playing in my zones. I think that's a shame — Robin Van Persie

I lost my balance, making my body unstable and falling on top of my opponent. At that moment I hit my face against the player leaving a small bruise on my cheek and a strong pain in my teeth. — Luis Suarez

It's freaking football. There are going to be big hits. I don't understand how they can do this after one weekend of hitting. And I can't understand how they can suspend us for it. I think it's a bunch of bull. — Brian Urlacher

When we're recovering from a spiritual fumble, we must realize everyone does stupid stuff. No one is exempt. An occasional misstep doesn't brand us as stupid - it makes us real. God loves us regardless of our mishaps. After a fumble, do as any good football player would. Fight to recover what you lost, get back into the game, and let the Creator turn your loss into a gain. With Him, in spite of our fumbles we can rise to great heights. — Jake Byrne

I went to Brigham Young University on a football scholarship. I wasn't a football player; I was a place kicker. — Jason Chaffetz

I led the NFL in attempts the past two years and they really didn't go out and get a quarterback to help me so I knew it's going to be all on me again. I could see my mortality as a football player, that I'm not going to be able to do this much longer. It just became obvious to me that playing football for me is not going to be fun, not something I'm going to enjoy and it's time for me to do something different. — Ricky Williams

Having been in football all my life as a player and a coach and having been on the sideline, I think the closer we can get to bringing people what it's like standing and watching the game on the sideline, with a better view, would be the perfect situation for television football. — John Madden

Drogba is a fighter. He is the kind of player I would say 'With you I could go to every war.' — Jose Mourinho

Rather than opera, football is more like ballet or a chess game. You can really see it in a team like Arsenal, especially when Dennis Bergkamp was playing. He seemed to be able to read the game like a chessboard and knew where a player would be several seconds later and put the ball there for him. — Marcus Du Sautoy

It was the most emphatic display of selflessness I have seen on a football field. Pounding over every blade of grass, competing if he would rather die of exhaustion than lose, he inspired all around him. I felt such an honor to be associated with such a player. — Alex Ferguson

There is only one, believe it or not. I did get knocked up by a baller. A big football player. — Jessica Simpson

I don't judge my success in life as a football player. — Tim Tebow

We don't want our players to be monks. We want them to be better football players because a monk doesn't play football at this level. — Bobby Robson

I would say the most significant difference between modern-era receivers and previous receivers is the ones who were in my generation or earlier had to get a job after they got through playing. Today's player doesn't. — Steve Largent

I was a very good baseball player and football player as a kid. — John Malkovich

Chloe had her knees pulled up, one arm wrapped around them. Her other hand was entwined with Derek's. He leaned back against the tree. Slumping, as if it was holding him up. His face glowed with sweat and his eyes were closed.
When I'd seen Derek in wolf form, I figured werewolves grew when they shifted, like the ones in movies. They didn't. He was really that big. Even slumped, he was more than a head taller then Chloe. A huge football player of a guy.
Beside me, Daniel whispered, "I was going to tell him off for bullying you. But I'm having second thoughts."
I smiled at him. "I don't blame you."
Despite his size, Derek was obviously no older than us. His cheeks were dotted with mild acne and I could see the ghosts of fading pocks, as if it had been much worse not too long ago. Dark hair tumbled into his eyes as he rested with his head bent forward. — Kelley Armstrong

I want to improve as a football player, but even more importantly, I really want to improve as a person. — Tim Tebow

My favorite sports novel is End Zone by Delillo. It's such a great looking book too, the black cover with the football player on it. It's just a fantastic little book. — Chad Harbach

I do not feel that I have a mandate from the entire world of football - the fans, the players, the clubs, the people who live, breathe and love football. — Sepp Blatter

I think if you're a good high school player that you have the ability to be a good college football player. If you're a good college football then you have the ability to be a great NFL player. — Robert Griffin III

The speed will increase and the players will be better, but also the players around you will be a lot better. It all cancels itself out. — Robert Griffin III

Theres something incredible about putting a helmet on just before a game; its a feeling only a football player knows. Your vision narrows, and the whole world shrinks. You cant hear much of what goes on outside you, but you can hear yourself breathe and you can feel yourself sweat. — Carl Deuker

I was hoping in the last fifteen minutes that Barcelona would beat them. I've made my mind up on Benitez tonight. He's a nice man but he's got a huge negative streak running through him. Liverpool was terrible in the second half. They didn't play football. If that was a concert, you'd boo. Gerrard: found out. A nothing player. They were terrible. Terrible. — Eamon

Fear can be conquered. I became a better person and a better football player when I learned that lesson. — Roger Craig

To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who hits the line hard. — Theodore Roosevelt

The NFL draft is going to be this Thursday. That's a huge night for college players. That's the night they start being paid over the table. — Jay Leno

I do not like football, which I think of as a game in which two tractors approach each other from opposite directions and collide. Besides, I have contempt for a game in which players have to wear so much equipment. Men play basketball in their underwear, which seems just right to me. — Anna Quindlen

People who are following their dreams inspire me. I train at this relatively new gym in West Hollywood called Training Mate. It's owned by a former Australian football player named Luke Milton. The classes are mostly taught by other Australians that are just like Luke: fit, funny, cute, and approachable. Now they're talking about opening another location. He will open another location and be successful because he's following his dream. People like him inspire me because they make me think I can do it too. — Dayna Devon

I was so raw I didn't know about the Lambeau Leap-a Packer player celebrates catching a touchdown by leaping into the stands. It was started by Leroy Butler years before and has been copied by players all over the league. Don't be fooled, though. The only legitimate Lambeau Leap is celebrated by a Packer at Lambeau Field. — Donald Driver

I would like to clarify one thing about the 1970 USC game. Talk about urban legend. There have been numerous stories and documentaries about Coach going to the USC dressing room after that game and bringing Sam Cunningham back into our locker room and saying, "This is what a real football player looks like." I was there and it didn't happen. It wasn't unusual for Coach Bryant to go to a visiting locker area after a game and congratulate the other team if they beat us and he did do that after the game. But he never brought anyone back to our dressing room. — Mal Moore With Steve Townsend

It's something you dream about as a kid. Like when you play all those NCAA video games as a kid and you create your own player and win the Heisman with a bunch of crazy numbers. It's the biggest, most prestigious award in college football, so it'd definitely be a dream come true. — Johnny Manziel

I've always thought about my legacy - more so, though, my impact off the field and how I'm helping my community and solidifying and strengthening the lives of others around me. And also, I just want to be a dominant football player, too. So it encompasses everything. — Larry Fitzgerald

I was a baseball player and a football player at Stanford, so I didn't play a lot of golf in college. I really started playing a lot after I turned pro and I had some time in the off-season. — John Elway

So [Polaroid's Dr. Edwin] Land, at 75, went off to spend the remainder of his life doing pure science, trying to crack the code of color vision. The man is a national treasure. I don't understand why people like that can't be held up as models: This is the most incredible thing to be - not an astronaut, not a football player - but this. — Steve Jobs

You need players that stand for emotion in football. Football today is a game for television. — Berti Vogts

My father was raised with brothers, he was a football player and a boxer, he was a chief petty officer in the Navy, he was a man of his times. — Hillary Clinton

I want to be remembered as a championship football player. — Brian Urlacher

At Texas, I was a football player playing baseball. And the way I play I think I still am. — Adam Dunn

Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man. — Pele

I just read 'The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.' To be married 25 years, you have to put as much energy as I put into being an actor or being a great football player into being a better husband and a better father. — Terry Crews

So
what about you? What are you doing tonight?"
"Same thing. Going out with my QB."
"Finn Mannus?" I give a little sigh. "He's dreamy."
Okay, I'm still a little irked by Dex's archaic "man code" thing with Gray, and
payback is a bitch.
Predictably, Dex makes a noise of disdain. "Thought you didn't follow football."
"There's a difference between following the sport and following a hot player," I
tease.
"Never thought I'd be the jealous type," he drawls. "But I guess I am because I
have the sudden urge to punch the little shit in the face right about now. — Kristen Callihan

Football helmets were first designed to protect against skull fractures, but users get more than skull fractures. We need to take a look at this to see if there is any way to improve safety. We need to set some standards, because the ones now are not protecting players to the highest level. — G. K. Butterfield

When you think of me as a football player, I would like for people to think that I put it on the line every time. Good or bad, win or lose, I put it on the line. — Joe Greene

Thankfully I'm a better actor than football player, or at least I hope so. — Ryan McPartlin

The way to be successful is through preparation. It doesn't just happen. You don't wake up one day and discover you're a lawyer any more than you wake up as a pro football player. It takes time. — Alan Page

In England, it's a rare thing to see a player smoking but, all in all, I prefer that to an alcoholic. The relationship with alcohol is a real problem in English football and, in the short term, it's much more harmful to a sportsman. It weakens the body, which becomes more susceptible to injury. — Alex Ferguson

Well, I don't think I've necessarily ever been a passionate football player or a passionate person. — Ricky Williams