Linebacker Quotes

Love hurts worse than getting slammed by a 250-pound linebacker.

How can you be in love with someone for forever and not be willing to take a chance when it finally hits you in the face like a linebacker?

Tori walked toward the bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her give Derek a once-over. "You know, from this angle, he doesn't look too bad," she said. I glared at her. "I'm just saying . . ." I leaned over Derek, calling him as loudly as I dared. "Personally, I'm more a running back girl myself," Tori said. "But if you like the linebacker type, he's--" My glower shut her up

She wore too much eyeliner then, at age thirteen, and now, at eighteen, she wears so much black under her eyes, she looks like a slutty linebacker raccoon.

Skyla's back," he continues, "and before she's formally charged with yet another homicide, a few things are going to change around here. For one, your mother and I will be around the house more often because we no longer have to babysit that linebacker your sister tried to force feed her Michelins.

They looked like linebackers on a prison football team, whose idea of commincation was to smash into something at full speed, preferably another person.

To crank up a noisy bad stance out in a place like San Francisco and start yelling about “getting things done in Washington” is like sitting far back in the end zone seats at the Super Bowl and screaming at the Miami linebackers “Stop Duane Thomas!

His massive frame occupies most of the doorway. He looks like a linebacker, or is it a quarterback I'm thinking of? The point is, he's a total Sasquatch. His t-shirt and preppy knit cardigan clash with his gargantuan body. Still, he's a decent eye candy. "What can I help you with?" she asks. Her eyes dart back and forth between me and the yeti.

[Jim Graham] had been a linebacker at Penn State, and was seriously old-school. I mean, really old-school; like he thought the forward pass was a trick play.

I’m big as a linebacker, and a seven-year-old girl treats me like her errand boy. Does she smell weakness on me?

It’s extremely hard to motivate myself to get to a place where I’m required to pay a twenty-dollar cover to get hip-checked by linebackers in church shoes all night, especially when I could just get back in my warm bed and NOT DO THAT.

Everyone! Can I have your attention please,” Will calls out so that everyone is staring at him. Which was totally unnecessary because everyone already was staring at him. It’s hard not to notice when a six foot two linebacker of a man in an Armani suit stands up on a table in your office. Good thing we have very high ceilings. “This is your doing, Jackie-O,” my father whispers to me. “He was normal before he ever met you.

Maybe his big build isn't a linebacker's after all; maybe it's a librarian's.

Sparky’s built like a linebacker and moves twice as fast. Get a little adrenaline pumping, and things tend to break around him.

While some women had wing girls for club hopping, Sal had something far more important - a best friend who could run patient interference better than most linebackers.

Knock it off you two,” Mason says as he slaps me in the back of the head. “If you give him a stiffy during the game, some linebacker is going to break his pecker.

Ray looked like a linebacker sitting in a skeletal chair. Mason had tried the same movement in front of a mirror at home and could never replicate the results.

Wow, thick head of dark curly hair. Linebacker shoulders. A nice butt.

He firmly believed that football, like other sports, used blacks, exploited them and then spit them out once their talents as running backs or linebackers or wide receivers had been fully exhausted. For a few lucky ones, that moment might not come until they were established in the pros. For others, it might come at the end of college. For most, it would all end in high school.

And in the same way, I’ve always given my best energy to things outside myself, believing that I’d be fine, that I was a workhorse, that I didn’t need special treatment or babying or, heaven help me, self-care. Self-care was for the fragile, the special, the dainty. I was a linebacker, a utility player, a worker bee. I ate on the run, slept in my clothes, worshiped at the altar of my to-do list, ignored the crying out of my body and soul like they were nothing more than the buzz of pesky mosquitoes.

Masters: Situation appears dire. Look around. Do you see any adults? Me: My ball size indicates I’m the adultest thing here. Me: I haven’t been rejected this hard since I tried to block the punt in that game against OSU last semester. Masters: My wife says rejection is good for you. Makes you mentally tough. Me: You love saying that phrase “my wife.” Masters: You bet your fat ass I do. Me: You don’t think it’s completely strange that you’re 21 and acting like a Taylor Swift song? Masters: Bro, sorry you feel left out. Stop by later and I’ll give you a hug. Me: Fuck off. Masters: I have MY WIFE to do that for me. Thanks, though. Hug still stands. I’ll even let you smell me. MY WIFE says I smell delicious. Me: I’ve smelled you before, which is why I’m not sure how you convinced Ellie to marry you. She must have defective olfactory senses. Masters: Me and MY defective WIFE will be getting it on tonight. While u have only Rosie Palm. Me: Don’t worry. I get plenty of variety. Left-hand Laura sometimes steps in. Masters: Heard you were out with Josie Weeks. Be careful. She eats little linebackers like you for breakfast. And the fact that I don’t even want to make a sexually charged comeback tells me exactly how I feel about Josie. Hope she doesn’t mind being just study partners.

Mrs. Convoy leaned into the desk, flattening her knuckles on it like a linebacker bracing against the hard earth, and with eyeballs floating above her bifocals asked why I felt it necessary to sit in my own waiting room during peak hours. I told her, she said, “And how is the ‘complete experience’?” I told her, she said, “And do you think the ‘complete experience’ might be enhanced by a dentist who tends to his patients in a timely manner?” I told her, she said, “We will not get a reputation for being a drill-and-bill shop just because you tend to patients in a timely manner. Jesus Mary and Joseph,” she said. “Sometimes I think we all work for Toots the Clown.

Plowing through life, you’re bound to run into obstructions. Some of life’s trials result from mistakes and missteps, and some from poor choices. I know about that too, because I’ve made my share of blunders and had to face the consequences. Other times, the unexpected lands in your hands like a wayward ball and the “trouble” coming at you is like a 250-pound linebacker blitzing straight off the edge. 

«È stato davvero il loro padre? È questo che si dice a scuola: che suo padre lo ha riempito di botte. Giocava a football da giovane. C’è la sua cazzo di foto nella bacheca dei trofei in palestra. Per tutta la mattina c’è stato un fottuto pellegrinaggio davanti a quella teca, tutti che guardavano la faccia del mostro. Io sono come lui, in tutto e per tutto: giocatore di football, linebacker, e testa di cazzo. Ho avuto paura. Fra vent’anni potrei essere io quello che ammazza di botte il proprio figlio e non voglio.» Zeke non sapeva se stava per dire una bugia, ma parlò lo stesso, perché se non aveva dato fiducia a Mason quando era il momento, forse poteva dargliela ora. A volte una bugia può spingerci a essere migliori. «Non saresti mai stato come Lance Scott. Quello stronzo. Io lo so.» Mason scosse la testa. «Sono stato un vigliacco.» «Ora non più »

Falling seemed to take forever as the water slowly rose to meet me. The dome of city hall continued to gleam in the distance, with its golden reflection extending to the river water. Strange that I hadn't seen that before.

Fear turned to awe when I met my coach, Jim Graham, a hulking, six-foot-four wall-of-a-guy. He had been a line-backer at Penn State, and was seriously old-school. I mean, really old-school; like he thought the forward pass was a trick play. On

Something was beyond wrong. Sebeck looked at the faces of the agents and police arrayed around him. There was abject hatred in their eyes. Burning anger. He knew that look. It was the look reserved for the vilest criminals. They were closing in from two directions—leaving a clear field of fire. Twenty or thirty heavily armed men. Sebeck glanced at Ross, who already had his hands on his head. “What the hell is going on, Jon?” “I don’t know. But the Daemon’s got something to do with it.” “This is your last warning! Put your hands on your head, or we will open fire!” Sebeck felt his blood rising. He put his hands on the back of his head but looked to Ross. “Why are they looking at me?” “I don’t know.” The Feds hit Sebeck like linebackers. They

Please, I don’t want to go yet! I want to see what you really look like. “IT WILL STRIKE FEAR IN YOUR HEART.” I promised I wouldn’t be frightened and said that it would be a privilege to see them. However, I did request that they make a peaceful gesture in the midst of this frightening exposure, just to reassure me. A wave, perhaps? A spinning white light with a hint of green began to radiate over their faces and upper bodies. The intensity of this light slowly got brighter. It radiated from no detectable source. Then I saw what they truly looked like. They were big, all right. Their upper bodies looked like football linebackers. As the light became brighter and the details clearer, fear and shock did course through me like lightning. They had scales, and their faces were sort of snakelike, or lizardlike. Nothing at all like the smaller aliens. I felt an odd, deep-down instinctual shock, but I told myself to calm down. Fig. 31: I See What These Aliens Really Look Like Their eyes were small like ours, but diamond shaped. The pupils were reddish. Their heads were big, and their brow stuck far out from their eyes to various degrees, giving them all some kind of individuality. I was surprised that I was deeply upset by them. “Hey,” I said feebly. “You promised to…uh...wave.” Wave they did. Each and every one of them slowly lifted their arms and waved them in front of their faces — a sight to behold. This relaxed me, but I was surprised by a feature I didn’t expect — their hands. Their hands were huge, with thick club-like features, which appeared too thick by my estimate to work fine instruments.

Engine room fire alarm’?” Rusty said. There was a moment of confusion before it kicked in. “ENGINE ROOM FIRE ALARM?” * * * “What the hell is that sound?” Harvey Tharpe said, rubbing his eyes as he opened the cabin door. Being on this yacht was better than being on the lifeboat but not much. They were packed in like sardines. There was food but being woken up in the middle of the night by a blaring “Squeee! Squeee! ” was not his idea of fun. The former businessman had been “robust” before being cast adrift on a lifeboat in a zombie apocalypse. He still had his height and some solidity. So he was more than a bit surprised when the short, blonde skipper of the boat, wearing not much more than a camisole and panties smashed him out of the way like an NFL linebacker on her way aft. “MOVE PEOPLE!” the boat captain shouted, continuing to hammer her way through the crowd of refugees. * * * “Fuck a freaking duck,” Sophia said, opening the door to the engine compartment. The smoke wasn’t so bad she needed a respirator but it was bad. And they were dead in the water. All the power except the shrieking alarm was out. She threw the main battery disconnect, then picked up one of the industrial fire extinguishers and played it over the exterior of the main breakers which were the source of the fire. “Skipper?” Paula said, picking another one up. “We need to get it open before we use them all up,” Sophia said, putting her hand on the extinguisher. “Get Rusty to get all the passengers up, out and on the sundeck.” She slid one hand into a rubber glove and popped open the main breaker panel. The whole thing was smoldering so she played the rest of the fire extinguisher over it until it was cold. A tick checker showed that the whole thing was electrically cold as well. Now if only the batteries hadn’t discharged their whole load into the panel and killed themselves as well. “What can I do, Skipper?” Patrick said groggily. The “engineer” was wearing not much more than the skipper. “Get a hand-held,” Sophia said. “See if there’s a sub in range. Tell them we had a major electrical fire. Fire is under control. No power at this time. May be repairable but we may need assistance. Don’t at this time but may. Got it? Do not call mayday or PON-PON. Do not.” “Got it, Skipper,” Patrick said. “And get these people the HELL OUT OF MY ENGINE COMPARTENT!

Coney Island Baby" You know, man, when I was a young man in high school You believe in or not, that I wanted to play football for the coach All those older guys, they said he was mean and cruel But you know, I wanted to play football, for the coach They said I was to little too light weight to play line-back So I say I'm playing right-in Wanted to play football for the coach Cause, you know some day, man, you gotta stand up straight Unless you're gonna fall Then you're gonna die And the straightest dude I ever knew Was standing right for me, all the time So I had to play football for the coach And I wanted to play football for the coach When you're all alone and lonely in your midnight hour And you find that your soul, it has been up for sale And you getting to think about, all the things you done And you getting to hate just about everything But remember the princess who lived on the hill Who loved you even though she knew you was wrong And right now she just might come shining through and the glory of love, glory of love Glory of love, just might come through And all your two-bit friends have gone and ripped you off They're talking behind your back saying, man you are never going to be a human being And you start thinking again About all those things that you've done And who it was and who it was And all the different things you made every different scene Ah, but remember that the city is a funny place Something like a circus or a sewer And just remember, different people have peculiar tastes And the Glory of love, the glory of love The glory of love, might see you through Yeah, but now, now Glory of love, the glory of love The glory of love, might see you through Glory of love, ah, huh, huh, the glory of love Glory of love, glory of love Glory of love, now, glory of love, now Glory of love, now, now, now, glory of love Glory of love, give it to me now, glory of love see you through Oh, my Coney Island baby, now (I'm a Coney Island baby, now) I'd like to send this one out for Lou and Rachel And the Lord appeared and he has one made of two Coney Island baby Man, I swear, I'd give the whole thing up for you Lou Reed, Coney Island Baby (1975)

Legs pinched together like bread loafs in a shared pan, linebackers in adjacent seats flying coach fare, chubby cats eating from a single dish.

Could you keep it down? You’re bothering Spike.” Both men peered at her feet, as though looking for a dog or a pet hamster or a stroller. “Spike?” Linebacker Guy said. She smiled at him. “My pet dragon? He’s very uncomfortable with strangers.” She made a show of stroking the air next to her. “It’s okay, Spike. Spencer will be here soon, and we’ll talk to him about you starring in his next novel, okay?

Guy with a mean look, shoulders like a line-back and skin colour somewhere between coffee and death?

Never die easy. Why run out of bounds and die easy? Make that linebacker pay. It carries into all facets of your life. It's okay to lose, to die, but don't die without trying, without giving it your best.

Eh,” Rob said. “Try being a linebacker sometime. Get hit hard enough to see stars a few times and you learn to tell the difference between what's actually there and what's not.

The person had to fall. Because if he didn't fall that meant the demon was powerful and the pastor needed to come at him even harder. You could be a linebacker in the NFL. Didn't matter. That pastor was taking you down. Good Lord, that was fun.

What success does to you. It is like a habit-forming drug that, in victory, saps your elation and, in defeat, deepens your despair. Once you have sampled it you are hooked, and now I lie in bed, not sleeping the sleep of the victor but wide awake, seeing the other people who are coming in next Sunday with the best defensive line in the league, with that great middle linebacker, that left defensive halfback who is as quick and agile as a cat and a quarterback who, although he is not as daring as Johnny Unitas or Y. A. Tittle or Bobby Layne, can kill you with his consistency.

They are the two best the defense has up front, and that 56 is disarming. He is rather round-faced and soft looking and he does not impress you off the field, but on it he is as good a middle linebacker as there is in the business. That 71 is just a great tackle, and those are the two who will plague me most of all.

The snow machine drivers, dressed in layers of outer. wear to repel the worst the Arctic can deliver, may cover the full thousand miles without a good night’s sleep and with few hot meals. A bed becomes something they dreamed of once; a hot shower, only a memory. They develop shoulders the envy of linebackers. But when they try to explain the pale, empty nights on the ice of Norton Sound, or the northern lights so bright they reflect off the snow in the Farewell Burn, wistful looks come over their wind and sunburned faces and they drift into silence or stammering attempts at description. Many come back year after year, addicted to the trail.

Hey, mister, we’re not a bus stop. Order something or take a hike.” Ham-fisted and built like a linebacker, the bartender had a face that had survived more than a few barroom brawls. A couple of bikers at the far end of the bar looked up with interest, probably hoping to see their buddy in action. Sandor knew he could take the guy, but now wasn’t the time to prove it. “I’ll take a scotch on the rocks.” He pulled out two five-dollar bills and tossed them on the bar. “Hold the scotch and the rocks. Keep the change.” The bartender and the other two looked at him like he was crazy. Finally, the bartender grinned. “Turns out we’re having a special on that night.” He pushed a five back across the counter. Sandor chuckled and accepted the bill. “Thanks.

The guy standing behind him—cute, dark-haired, the innocent face of a boy and the body of a linebacker—looked barely thirty. “How’s it going?” he said, smiling, and she couldn’t help smiling back. They each took out leather badge holders and flipped them open. She saw only a flash of gold, a glint of silver. The older one sat slowly, gingerly, on the only chair, as if he had a bad back. “How are you feeling, Mrs. Heller?” His partner went scrounging for another chair from somewhere beyond the blue curtains, the boundaries of her world.

I don’t for one second think he ‘lacks in the sack’, but it wouldn’t be the first time I spread my legs for a good looking, linebacker size of a man and was left unsatisfied.   You take them home expecting a nice English cucumber, but regrettably end up with a pickle.

At almost six-foot tall, the rumor was Cindy wanted to play linebacker on the boy’s football team but they wouldn’t let her because she hit too hard.

Shut the fuck up and mind your own business, Bren.” Before Furi could put up any kind of guard, Brenden had his hands around his throat and shoved him until his back slammed into the stainless steel refrigerator. “You think you can talk to me that way, you little shit?” Brenden snarled, spittle flying from his mouth. His hands twisting and burning the skin around Furi’s neck. “Get off me,” Furi gasped, trying unsuccessfully to pry the thick fingers off. His husband and brother-in-law had both been linebackers in college. Neither minded using their brawn and strength on him, and often. Brenden brought his knee up fast, kneeing him so hard in the groin Furi thought death would be better than the pain. Brenden stepped back and let Furi drop to the hard granite floor, slapping him hard in the back of the head before strolling off as if he owned the world. Furi couldn’t hear what the hell his husband was saying because his ears were ringing and his eyes were so filled with tears he thought best to just keep them shut. “Patrick,” Furi groaned, clutching at his balls, knowing nothing would stop the throbbing. “Don’t talk like a big boy if you don’t have the balls to back it up, darlin,” his husband said nonchalantly.

I grabbed a shard of glass and spun around, brandishing it in front of me. It was a pretty, stippled blue piece, nice and sharp. “Hold on, tiger. I give up.” A bear of a man stood in front of me, hands raised in mock surrender— well, except for the shotgun in his right hand. He towered well over six feet and was shaped like a linebacker, one who’d gone a little too long between haircuts. Dark curls hugged the collar of a basic black T-shirt that almost camouflaged a black shoulder holster holding some type of nasty-looking black handgun. It all matched his black jeans and boots. He looked like the poster child for an upscale GQ mercenary. The only shred of color on him was his eyes, and they were dark brown. Mr. Monochromatic. He laid the shotgun on the table near the door and stepped back, hands up, watching me from beneath hooded lids. A lesser woman would have noticed the thick muscles moving under his tanned skin when he raised his arms, or the T-shirt that fit just snugly enough to send a girl’s thoughts to the Promised Land. Good thing I don’t notice stuff like that. “If you want to search me for more weapons, I’m game.” My eyes shot back to his, and I felt my cheeks flush, hot and bothered on the way to angry. Leave it to a guy to open his mouth and ruin a perfectly good moment.

They’re looking now. He’s at the far side of the hall with a hulking group of football players, and all heads are turned his way. I’ve always thought Baylor was big and tall, but one of the guys next to him looks like he eats screaming villagers for breakfast. A linebacker, if I had to guess. He even has a beard, full and bushy. Hagrid’s younger brother maybe.

The most successful football linebackers are massive because their job is either to be immovable (offensive linemen) or to move the immovable (defensive linemen). Tennis players typically have average builds because their sport requires a combination of qualities—quickness, power, leverage, balance, and stamina—that favors no extremes of size or shape. Endurance sports, of course, tend to favor two related characteristics: low body weight and lean body composition (or a low body-fat level). This is the case because endurance racing demands the ability to move economically so that a high work rate (or speed) can be sustained for a long time and a low body weight and lean body composition contribute to movement efficiency.

I knew he’d want to hug me, so I dropped my bag and held my arms open. He bit his bottom lip as he came barreling at me like a linebacker. I laughed as our hard bodies clashed, and he held me in a fierce grip, while I held him back.

FROM THE SNAP of the ball to the snap of the first bone is closer to four seconds than to five. One Mississippi: The quarterback of the Washington Redskins, Joe Theismann, turns and hands the ball to running back John Riggins. He watches Riggins run two steps forward, turn, and flip the ball back to him. It’s what most people know as a “flea-flicker,” but the Redskins call it a “throw back special.” Two Mississippi: Theismann searches for a receiver but instead sees Harry Carson coming straight at him. It’s a running down—the start of the second quarter, first and 10 at midfield, with the score tied 7–7—and the New York Giants’ linebacker has been so completely suckered by the fake that

Overidentifying with just one aspect of yourself can also be dangerous. Take Junior Seau, a linebacker who played twenty years in the National Football League. He led his team, the San Diego Chargers, to a Super Bowl championship and was voted to a record twelve-straight Pro Bowls. But less than three years after retiring, Seau tragically committed suicide.

million-dollar smile. The earnest, all-American niceness of the guy. Not to mention the pure, high, spiraling arc of the thrown football as it zeros in, laser-like, on the expected position of the wide receiver. Never mind that said receiver is flat-out running for his life, dancing, dodging, leaping and spinning in a million directions just inches ahead of several thundering tons of rival linebackers. And never mind that the architect of that exquisite spiral was himself beset, nanoseconds earlier, with similar masses of murderous muscle bearing down on him as he threw. The ball hammers down precisely into the receiver’s arms as he sails across the line, and the fans go wild. TOUCHDOWN! Who could not love Tom Brady? The accomplishments, honors, and accolades go on and on: youngest quarterback ever to win three Super Bowls. Only quarterback ever to win NFL MVP by unanimous vote. As of 2013 he had been twice Super Bowl MVP, twice NFL MVP, nine times invited to the Pro Bowl, twice on the AP All-Pro First Team, five times an AFC Champion, and twice leader of the NFL in passing yards. He had also been (at least once, and in some cases multiple times) Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, Sporting News Sportsman of the year, AP Male Athlete of the Year, NFL Offensive Player of the Year, AFC Offensive Player of the Year, AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year, PFWA NFL Comeback Player of the Year, and the New England Patriots’ all-time leader in passing touchdowns, passing yards, pass completion, pass attempts, and career wins. But Tom Brady didn’t get to be Tom Brady overnight. And he didn’t get there alone.

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A lot of MAGA people I talked to in the weeks after The Event claimed that the police must have opened all the doors for them and that it was all a setup. That was a popular theory on the internet. But it’s just not true. The Linebacker was shouting in a state of euphoria that he broke the doors open; I can’t imagine he was lying. The theories about the police opening all the doors are wrong because the initial opening of at least four doors was done by him and his teammates. And don’t forget about those flanking maneuvers! He described how the crowd repeatedly forced police to bunch in certain areas, then ran to other, less defended areas. Crowds don’t do that organically. Someone with at least decent tactical instincts was directing their behavior, someone whose goal was to get people inside the building itself. But who? Who would want the crowd to break into the building?

With the defensive backfield set, you have now determined the alignment of seven of the eleven defensive players. By then turning your attention to the inside men, you can establish that one man on the line of scrimmage is in the gap between the center and guard, and one linebacker is in the gap between the center and other guard. Nine of the eleven men are now placed, so it can be assumed, until confirmed, that the tackles are also in the gap. As the scout observes this defense develop, he can identify it as a concealed Gap 8.

You’re the first boy I ever met who didn’t know what a linebacker is. Boy. I’m twenty-four years old and she’s calling me a boy and I’m wondering do you have to be forty to be a man in America?

As it turned out, Moss and the Patriots were hotter than the game-time temperature of 84 degrees. They ran the Jets off the field in a 38–14 rout highlighted by Moss’s 51-yard touchdown against triple coverage and 183 receiving yards on nine catches. “He was born to play football,” Brady said of his newest and most lethal weapon. The quarterback had it all now. He was getting serious with his relatively new girlfriend, Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen (his ex-girlfriend, actress Bridget Moynahan, had just given birth to their son, Jack), and now he was being paired on the field with a perfect partner of a different kind. Brady wasn’t seeing the Oakland Randy Moss. He was seeing the Minnesota Moss, the vintage Moss, the 6´4˝ receiver who ran past defenders and jumped over them with ease. Brady had all day to throw to Moss and Welker, who caught the first of the quarterback’s three touchdown passes. He wasn’t sacked while posting a quarterback rating of 146.6, his best in nearly five years. Man, this was a great day for the winning coach all around. On the other sideline, Eric Mangini had made a big mistake by sticking with his quarterback, Chad Pennington, a former teammate of Moss’s at Marshall, when the outcome was no longer in doubt, subjecting his starter to some unnecessary hits as he played on an injured ankle. Pennington was annoyed enough to pull himself from the game with 6:51 left and New England leading by 17. “That was the first time I’ve ever done that,” Pennington said. Mangini played the fool on this Sunday, and Belichick surely got the biggest kick out of that. But the losing coach actually won a game within the game in the first half that the overwhelming majority of people inside Giants Stadium knew absolutely nothing about. It had started in the days before this opener, when Mangini informed his former boss that the Jets would not tolerate in their own stadium an illegal yet common Patriots practice: the videotaping of opposing coaches’ signals from the sideline. The message to Belichick was simple: Don’t do it in our house. It was something of an open secret that New England had been illegally taping opposing coaches during games for some time, and yet the first public mention of improper spying involving Belichick’s Patriots actually assigned them the collective role of victim. Following a 21–0 Miami victory in December 2006, a couple of Dolphins told the Palm Beach Post that the team had “bought” past game tapes that included audio of Brady making calls at the line, and that the information taken from those tapes had helped them shut out Brady and sack him four times. “I’ve never seen him so flustered,” said Miami linebacker Zach Thomas.

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Watching Bex Lim’s reactions to the presents I left in her locker was pretty much the only thing that got me up in the morning. When she gave away the gift card on Monday, I almost laughed at her audacity. On Tuesday, she held the banana I’d taped to the outside of her locker to her ear like a phone. Meeting my gaze across the hall, she mouthed, “Fuck you”, then tossed it to James Anthony, Savage River’s star linebacker, as he passed by. When he’d stopped mid-stride to question why he was now in possession of a banana, Bex pointed him my way. James peeled his banana and ravaged it in two bites, winking at me as he continued down the hall.

York Giants’ linebacker has been so completely

Oh, you don’t say,” Dylan interrupted sarcastically. “I thought that was clear from the way the bitch nearly turned into a linebacker when we tried to get her in the car to get here. Y’all worried about her when I think she may have fucked around and dislocated my damn shoulder!

I took more after our father with my dark hair, green eyes, and the grace of a linebacker,

I LOOKED DOWN the barrel of my Glock 19 service weapon. Lori Armstrong, a tall detective with long blond hair from the Forty-Third precinct, stood across from me. Hector Nunez, a crimes and missing-persons detective, who looked like he should play linebacker for the Jets, was about to knock on the door.

MY FISTS HIT the bag in the rec room with a satisfying whap, the impact sending shock waves up my forearms, toward my shoulders, through my chest. I twisted and gave the bag a couple of deep hooks to the side, bounced back and punched my imaginary foe’s face square- on. It was pretty easy to lose myself in the workout. I had plenty of sparring partners to imagine. I was knocking Nigel upside the head for arresting my brother. I was giving Linebacker a sucker punch to the gut for chastising me like a child. I was slamming my fist into Burns’s kidneys, imagining the man doubling over, sinking to the mat as the pain ripped through him.

When I asked star linebacker Devin Bush Jr. about this, he laughed and imitated a classmate’s voice, “ ‘You’re playing a game! You get a free education! You don’t have to pay for food and housing!’ “Let me tell you: We pay for all that stuff every time we wake up at five-thirty in the morning. When you go home for holidays, we’re practicing. When you go home for the summer, we’re in class, and the weight room.

Kai is chomping her way through a fried feast that would daunt a linebacker. French fries topped with crab meat. Yuck, by the way. Not to mention the pork belly chips, a monster burger and deep fried Oreos. This meal should come with a pacemaker, but my girl, barely able to get her little hand all the way around this mammoth burger, is halfway through hers before I’ve even dented mine. “What?” She glances up from her half-empty, grease-laden plate, sauce all around her lips. “You’re not hungry?” “Obviously not as hungry as you are.” I reach over to wipe her mouth with my napkin. “You’re not supposed to tease a lady about how much she eats,” Kai says, mouth full. “It’s impolite.” “Not even when this delicate flower eats me under the table?

Christian, who was a tall and wide-shouldered linebacker for the Helena high school football team and who’d volunteered his home for the party because his parents were in Great Falls, rolled his eyes and lowered the volume on his iHome with a remote. He was pale-featured and wore his hair in a semi-buzz cut that looked like a beige carpet sample. A couple of other boys, who were pounding beer after beer in the kitchen and were also on the football team, howled in protest that they liked that song.

I’ve always thought Baylor was big and tall, but one of the guys next to him looks like he eats screaming villagers for breakfast. A linebacker, if I had to guess.

The linebacker protested the move and Belichick shelved him for the rest of the season. Amazingly, he'd never play in the league again.

The linebacker and the Army Ranger go into action as part of a team. But the artist and the entrepreneur enter combat alone. I take my hat off to every man or woman who does this.

Coney Island Baby" You know, man, when I was a young man in high school You believe in or not, that I wanted to play football for the coach All those older guys, they said he was mean and cruel But you know, I wanted to play football, for the coach They said I was to little too light weight to play line-back So I say I'm playing right-in Wanted to play football for the coach Cause, you know some day, man, you gotta stand up straight Unless you're gonna fall Then you're gonna die And the straightest dude I ever knew Was standing right for me, all the time So I had to play football for the coach And I wanted to play football for the coach When you're all alone and lonely in your midnight hour And you find that your soul, it has been up for sale And you getting to think about, all the things you done And you getting to hate just about everything But remember the princess who lived on the hill Who loved you even though she knew you was wrong And right now she just might come shining through and the glory of love, glory of love Glory of love, just might come through And all your two-bit friends have gone and ripped you off They're talking behind your back saying, man you are never going to be a human being And you start thinking again About all those things that you've done And who it was and what it was And all the different things you made every different scene Ah, but remember that the city is a funny place Something like a circus or a sewer And just remember, different people have peculiar tastes And the Glory of love, the glory of love The glory of love, might see you through Yeah, but now, now Glory of love, the glory of love The glory of love, might see you through Glory of love, ah, huh, huh, the glory of love Glory of love, glory of love Glory of love, now, glory of love, now Glory of love, now, now, now, glory of love Glory of love, give it to me now, glory of love see you through Oh, my Coney Island baby, now (I'm a Coney Island baby, now) I'd like to send this one out for Lou and Rachel And the Lord appeared and he has one made of two Coney Island baby Man, I swear, I'd give the whole thing up for you Lou Reed, Coney Island Baby (1975)

Brad glanced from his locker to find the large form of his friend and hockey teammate Trey Arenson looming over him. Trey, whose two hundred pounds of hard muscle were spread over an imposing six-foot, two-nch frame, looked more like a linebacker than a goalie, but his build made him nothing short of an iron wall in the nets.

Tension stretches across my back like a wire hanger. “What does that mean?” “It’s just an awkward time to be talking black and sleeping white.” He shrugs the linebacker shoulders rebelling against his tweed sports jacket with patches on the elbows. “To be dating someone outside your community when you’re emerging as such a voice for it.” The smartest man I know just said some dumb shit. “You see those two things as somehow incongruous?” My question is laced with dread as I brace myself for the man I saw as a hero to show his feet of clay.

She wasn’t sure how a high school linebacker from Hilo had wound up with Venus for a mom, but no one in the legion gave him any grief about that—not once they saw him crush rocks with his bare hands.

Coach Valvano told me that my goal should be to walk out of the interview with “no negatives.” Every comment, phrase, or story must be positive, and I had to be prepared to talk only about things that put me in the best light. No matter what the topic, it was my job to turn every answer into a response that highlighted my strong points. Like his point guard, who controlled the court, or my middle linebacker, who controlled our defense, I had to control the interview. He taught me that if they asked a question that I couldn’t answer, then I shouldn’t answer it but instead find a way to turn the question to something I could talk about comfortably, positively, and honestly. He explained the importance of being disciplined in that setting and avoiding any and all negative thoughts. If I spoke with positivity and confidence, it would be evident that I believed in myself, and that belief was what the interviewer would be looking for.

Built like a linebacker, with a square jaw, broad features, and a gray comb-over, Netanyahu was smart, canny, tough, and a gifted communicator in both Hebrew and English. (He’d been born in Israel but spent most of his formative years in Philadelphia, and traces of that city’s accent lingered in his polished baritone.)

Troy earned all of our respect,” says Garry Cobb, the Dallas linebacker. “He got killed and refused to cry. I’ve been on the field when quarterbacks cry, and it ain’t pretty. Dan Marino was a crier—‘Whose man was that! Where’s the blocking! Whah! ’ But Aikman—never. Aikman was a man.

I used to literally dream of Nova Scotia, its mouldering sea-stink and incessant damp, its buildings hunched like a linebacker's shoulders against the elements, its people with their mishmash of enterprise, humanity, and grit.