Football Quarterback Quotes & Sayings

I did come up with the term "sack" to describe the devastation I was bringing on the poor, cringing quarterbacks in the NFL. "Sack the quarterback." That was nice. I thought it was lots better than saying, "Jones tackles the QB behind the line for another loss of yardage ... " It had a ring to it, and it caught on with the sports writers. But I tell you, doing it was a lot more fun than talking about it. — Deacon Jones

You need to just understand where the ball is and how to use your body. Timing your jump the right way is crucial. Learn how to use your body to shield the receiver and box him out, again, much like a rebound. Trying to beat a receiver to a ball can be a lot like you're posting him up. Rebounding is great practice because you can employ those skills - body position, leverage, timing - a lot more than you might in a football game or practice if the quarterback doesn't look your way. — Antonio Cromartie

No one coaches what to do after three seconds, after the quarterback's broken the pocket or he's been in the pocket for five, six seconds. — Robert Griffin III

The heartbeat of a football team is the quarterback position and I think everyone who has any intelligence about the game understands you must have consistency at that position to be a championship team. — Ron Jaworski

I don't want people to say I'm a solid quarterback. I want to be the best, and I'll continually work until I get there. — Robert Griffin III

I really find myself doing a lot better when I'm injured, so sometimes I look forward to it. This is the style that I play-being physical, running the football, making adjustments on the pass, avoiding the rush. Those sorts of things go with the total package of a quarterback. — Steve McNair

Being there every week for my teammates is really important to me. It's about accountability. I hear stuff about the 'toughest quarterback in the league' and all that; what's that mean? — Peyton Manning

He told himself that he was a clown clean through. Every time a fly ball had been hit to him with men on the bases, he'd muffed it. Hoping for one thing, then another, and when he did get his chances -- foul ball.

Girls, too. He'd never held one. Twice Lucy had given him the cold shoulder. That girl he'd knelt next to at Christmas Mass in Saint Patrick's once -- cold shoulder. Never got beyond wishing with her. Now Catherine.

Football. He'd wanted to be a star high-school quarterback and he'd not had the guts to stay in school. Fighting. His kid brother had even cleaned him up. In the war when he'd tried to enlist, a leather-necked sergeant had laughed at him.

He was just an all-around no soap guy. — James T. Farrell

In football, it's the ultimate team sport. You have to have good people around you as a quarterback for things to happen. — Warren Moon

I'm a firm believer that all sports will eventually be global. Someday, we may have a quarterback from China named Yao Fling. — Paul Tagliabue

The simplest way to win in the National Football League is to knock out the starting quarterback. You know, throughout the years, history has proven if your number one quarterback goes down, your chances for success become very limited. — Ron Jaworski

The positions I played in football, being a quarterback and a defensive back, you had to kind of have a little independent thinking. — Hale Irwin

I guess I'm a fun-loving teddy bear. I've got two sides to me. Obviously, there's the football side that a lot of people see - the mean, ferocious, coming-after-the-quarterback guy. But off the field, I'm a calm, cool, collected guy. — Ndamukong Suh

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

At the end of the week, when we sat down to dinner, all eyes went to the trays on the table, where browned-to-perfection mini corn dogs cuddled up against a variety of dipping sauces.
"This is the best thing that's ever happened to me." A lineman wiped a tear from his eye.
"It's like Christmas," I said, all choked up.
"I love you, Coach." The quarterback's bottom lip quivered.
We dove into the pile of savory sausages, watched NFL football, and forgot our aches, pains, and camp struggles. — Jake Byrne

If you're dating the quarterback and then you go out with the hockey player, you just go to the hockey games. I don't think I'll still go to the football games. — Nicolle Wallace

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. — Steve Young

Tight end is one of the hardest positions to play in football. It's right up there with quarterback and cornerback. You have to have the skills of a wide receiver and the strength of an offensive lineman, and it's not easy to balance those two. — Tony Gonzalez

If I believe that I became the best quarterback that I could possibly be, the best football player that I could possibly be ... That's how I'm going to measure my career as a success or not. — Tim Tebow

I was a quarterback in pee-wee football. I always wanted to be quarterback. They're the leaders, they make the calls. It didn't work out because I didn't have the arm. I also played wide receiver my senior year in high school. — Junior Seau

I remember when I was 6 years old and my brother used to go seek out guys that were 13 to come over and play football against me while he was the 'permanent quarterback.' I didn't know exactly what the age difference was, but I was already playing against older guys. — Junior Seau

I never thought I would be the oldest quarterback in the National Football League at one point, not in a million years. I never thought I would play as long as I did, either, seventeen years from start to finish, with stops in Houston, Minnesota, Seattle, and Kansas City. — Warren Moon

The five big mistakes in football are the fumble, the interception, the penalty, the badly called play, the blocked punt - and most of these originate with the quarterback. Find a mistake-proof quarterback and you have this game won. — Woody Hayes

If you want to coach you have three rules to follow to win. One, surround yourself with people who can't live without football. I've had a lot of them. Two, be able to recognize winners. They come in all forms. And, three, have a plan for everything. A plan for practice, a plan for the game. A plan for being ahead, and a plan for being behind 20-0 at half, with your quarterback hurt and the phones dead, with it raining cats and dogs and no rain gear because the equipment man left it at home. — Bear Bryant

As a quarterback, you have to love it. As much as you like to turn around and hand the ball off - the whole traditional football game - as a quarterback, you gotta love putting it in the air. — Joe Montana

I loved football even before I married a quarterback; it's not for every woman, but I like it. — Holly Robinson Peete

The name of the game is 'kill the quarterback.' Every football team tries to knock the guy out of the game that's handling the ball. — Joe Namath

Ronan was - if the papers were to be believed - the best hooker to come out of Ireland maybe ever. And by "hooker," I don't mean prostitute. Hooker is a position - a very pivotal position - on the rugby field. Based on my quick research, it appeared to be the rugby equivalent of an American football team's quarterback. — L. H. Cosway

Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck. — Don Shula

Now, Shay Bourne isn't the first person to come along and stir the pot," King said. "Few years back, a Florida State football quarterback was found lying in the street, claiming to be God. — Jodi Picoult

Now he laughs for real, cackling with the wicked innocence of the bright and easily bored. Staff Sergeant David Dime is a twenty-four-year-old college dropout from North Carolina who subscribes to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Maxim, Wired, Harper's, Fortune, and DicE Magazine, all of which he reads in addition to three or four books a week, mostly used textbooks on history and politics that his insanely hot sister sends from Chapel Hill. There are stories that he went to college on a golf scholarship, which he denies. That he was a star quarterback in high school, which he claims not to remember, though one day a football surfaced at FOB Viper, and Dime, caught up in the moment, perhaps, nostalgia triggering some long-dormant muscle memory, uncorked a sixty-yard spiral that sailed over Day's head into the base motor pool. — Ben Fountain

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

He hadn't developed into the accomplished running quarterback many had predicted he would become over the course of the season.

But he had come to personify this team. He was raw and untested when the season began, but he played his two best games in the two biggest games on the schedule. He wasn't the player anybody expected him to be, but he got the job done-at times spectacularly. — Neil Hayes

I'm always studying. I probably wrote the most papers of any college quarterback. — Robert Griffin III

It's my job, first and foremost, to take care of the football. Guys work their tails off. That's Football 101. From the time you play youth ball to high school, college, pro, every level, that's the starting point for every quarterback. You have to take care of the ball. — Scott Tolzien

We didn't win a Super Bowl together, and that's something I'll always regret - not knowing what that feels like. But you and I have won more games together than any quarterback and coach combination in the history of the NFL. — Dan Marino

If Tiger Woods had played football, he would have been a quarterback. — Lou Holtz

Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, 'Hey man, this is what is.' I reached my goal, my dream, my life. I think, 'God, it's got to be more than this.' I mean this isn't, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be ... I love playing football and I love being quarterback for this team. But at the same time, I think there are a lot of other parts about me that I'm trying to find. — Tom Brady

Nobody, not even the head coach, would do anything to a football unilaterally, such as adjust the amount of pressure in a ball, without the quarterback not knowing. It would have to be the quarterback's idea. — John Madden

One of the reasons I'm lucky is to be around an owner like Jerry Jones. I'm not just saying it. The reality of it is the guy wants to win. As a quarterback, you need ownership and people in the front office and organization to help you win. If you don't get that help, you're always going to be fighting an uphill battle. You feel that, being a part of this organization with Jerry, that he's going to bring in people and sign people and want to improve this football team every year. It allows you to feel like, hey, we have a chance and I have a chance to do some special things around here. — Tony Romo

The quarterback's spending so much time behind the center that he may jeopardize his right to lead a Boy Scout troop. — Dennis Miller

Honestly, being a 5'11 quarterback, not too many people think that you can play in the National Football League. And so for me, you know, I knew that my height doesn't define my skill set, you know? I believed in my talent. I believed in what God gave me. I believed in the knowledge that I have of the game. — Russell Wilson

We need the quarterbacks. It's a passing league and a quarterback-driven league. We need the Peyton Mannings in football uniforms out there playing - the Tom Bradys, the Drew Breeses, the Philip Riverses - we need those guys instead of them standing on the sideline. — John Madden

If I could play football, I'd play football. But not women's football - real football. Or I'd just date a quarterback. — Portia Doubleday

It's cool. You can laugh about it, but at the same time you can't really get caught up in it because you're here for a job and it's to win football games. Being on this team, being with the head coach here and the quarterback we have keeps you humble. It keeps you hard working. You can laugh and giggle about stuff, but then at the same time you've got to make sure you're prepared and practicing hard still. — Rob Gronkowski

Imagine yourself sitting on top of a great thoroughbred horse. You sit up there and you just feel that power. That's what it was like playing quarterback on that team [the Pittsburgh Steelers]. It was a great ride. — Terry Bradshaw

Jessica Simpson attended boyfriend Tony Romo's football game. The Cowboys quarterback had the worst game of his career. It's a bad year for the name Simpson. Even O. J. is pissed - he feels like they're making his name look bad. — Chelsea Handler

A good football coach needs a patient wife, a loyal dog and a great quarterback - but not necessarily in that order. — Bud Grant

When you think of the former high school football star, you think 6-foot-2, white, meathead as the model for that kind of character. Since I'm not 6-foot-2 or white, I just thought about what I could bring to it. I thought about Smash Williams from 'Friday Night Lights,' like the cocky quarterback, and played around with that. — Donald Glover