Nfl Coaches Quotes

When it's too hard for them it's just right for us!

How you coach them is how they're going to play.

Players grunt, coaches yell, and pads and helmets crack, creating a frightening symphony of future early-onset dementia.

I love coaching football, and winning a Super Bowl was a goal I’ve had for a long time. But it has never been my purpose in life. My purpose in life is simply to glorify God. We have to be careful that we don’t let the pursuit of our life’s goals, no matter how important they seem, cause us to lose sight of our purpose. I coach football. But the good I can do to glorify God along the way is my real purpose.

Almost everything I've done is technically wrong, but Paul never mentioned the mistakes, only the corrective measures.

The coaches let me prove myself, they gave me a chance to show how my difference could be a strength. That understanding, that diversity of strength, was critical to the team and made it possible for me to be judged on my athletic merits alone.

The largest culture shock was being Black in this atmosphere. We had white coaches, and they wanted the Black players to be the embodiment of who they were. They would tell us to wear our pants or shoes a certain way; this is what it meant to “be a man.” They thought our path to manhood was to be found in skinny jeans and a tucked-in shirt. (Although now Migos, getting “Bad and Boujee,” has all kinds of young players dressing like that by choice. Go figure.) But they never understood or tried to understand us. They projected their morals and thought processes onto young Black men without figuring out who we were. This struck me as a recipe for our continually being misunderstood, misguided, and misjudged, ingredients for disaster and rebellion, or at the very least for stress and self-destruction and the creation of the very PTSD that afflicts players when it’s all over.

He wants to play major college football at a university far away, where nobody will know about his tragic family history. Then he wants to play in the NFL. Every catch brings him closer to that reality. That's how he thinks of it, anyway. Every time he runs downfield, sees the ball in the air, and hears the defensive back laboring to catch up, whenever he feels that ball fall out of the sky and into his waiting hands, he inches closer to his goals.

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.

You ever read about the first black person to do so and so or hold such and such a job? I know I have. Here’s the first black head football coach in the NFL. Here’s the first black owner in the NFL. Here’s the first black editor in chief of Harper’s Bazaar. Here’s the first black person to attend Harvard, the first black valedictorian at Princeton. Here’s the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize. Now think of when you’ve ever heard about the first white person to do something significant. I can’t remember one time reading, “Check it out, finally a white person’s done this!” And you know why? Because white people have had a lock on significance since before this country was even a country.

complaining means you have a reference point for something better that you would prefer but that you are unwilling to take the risk of creating. Either accept that you are making the choice to stay where you are, take responsibility for your choice, and stop complaining . . . or . . . take the risk of doing something new and different to create your life exactly the way you want it. If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be, of course you’re going to have to take that risk. So make the decision to stop complaining, to stop spending time with complainers, and get on with creating the life of your dreams. Pete Carroll, the coach of the NFL Seattle Seahawks football team, which won the 2014 Super Bowl, has three rules for his team: (1) ALWAYS protect the team; (2) no whining, no complaining, and no excuses; and (3) be early. These are the rules of a Super Bowl championship team. They are worth adapting.

The Bears would play in Wrigley Field from 1921 to 1970. In their first home game, they beat the Rochester Jeffersons. Wrigley Field was particularly ill suited for football. The end zones, which are normally ten yards deep, were foreshortened by a dugout on one side, an outfield wall on the other. A wide receiver might make a catch, then fall into the dugout. On one occasion, Bronko Nagurski, the great power runner of the 1930s, took the ball, put his head down, bulled through every defender—and straight into a brick wall. He got up slowly. When he made it to the bench, Halas was concerned: “You okay, Bronk?” Nagurski said he was fine, but added, “That last guy gave me a pretty good lick, coach.” In the early years, most NFL teams played in baseball stadiums, and many took the name of the host team. Hence the Pittsburgh Pirates, who played in Forbes Field, and the New York Football Giants, who played in the Polo Grounds. Halas considered naming his team the Cubs, but in the end, believing that football players were much tougher than baseball players, he called them the Bears.

After graduating early from high school, I carefully listened to the quarterback during my first play in college spring ball. My mind was on the very basics of football: alignment, assignment, and where to stand in the huddle. The quarterback broke the huddle and I ran to the line, meeting the confident eyes of a defensive end—6-foot-6, 260- pound Matt Shaughnessy. I was seventeen, a true freshman, and he was a 23-year-old fifth-year senior, a third-round draft pick. Huge difference between the two of us. Impressing the coach was not on my mind. Survival was. “Oh, Jesus,” I said. I wasn’t cursing. I was praying for help. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray ( James 5:13). That day Matt came off the ball so fast. Bam! Next thing I knew, I was flat on my back, thrown to the ground. I got up and limped back to the huddle. Four years later...standing on the sidelines in my first NFL game, bouncing on my toes, waiting for my chance to go in, one of the tight ends went down. My time to shine! Where do I stand? Who do I have? I look up and meet the same eyes I met on my first play in college football. Matt Shaughnessy! ...

After twelve years as an NFL head coach—six with the Indianapolis Colts—I know that God has provided me with a significant platform that cannot be measured in sheer numbers alone. We are all role models to someone. Speaking to five thousand people is no more important than quietly teaching one. And as long as our hearts are right, God will honor both endeavors, accomplishing what He will in each setting.

coaches would know; writers, most of whom at least try to talk to insiders; former jocks; former greats, most of whom know the game, but can’t explain it because of how easily it came to them or because it was simpler in their day; NFL assistant coaches; NFL head coaches; winning NFL head coaches; Super Bowl–winning head coaches; and finally, at the very top of arcane knowledge and expertise in a faintly ridiculous corner of American intellectual esotery, Bill Belichick.

Pete Carroll isn’t a saint; he’s a coach. After losing his job as an NFL head coach in the 1990s, Carroll stopped imitating what others did and followed his own path. It may sound like he’s an easygoing “player’s coach” who is “soft” on his team, but Carroll is one of only three coaches in history to win both an NCAA championship and a Super Bowl. He also believes in toughness.

The result of racial fixation is surreal: the NBA and NFL have taken up the social activist cudgels in embracing “taking the knee” during the national anthem and lecturing the nation on the need for inclusiveness and diversity—even as the players, the owners, and often the coaches comprise the most nondiverse racial profiles of any major American institution.55

Confidence is contagious, and so is lack of confidence.” – Vince Lombardi, 5-Time NFL Champion Coach

The game of football evolved and here was one cause of its evolution, a new kind of athlete doing a new kind of thing. All by himself, Lawrence Taylor altered the environment and forced opposing coaches and players to adapt. After Taylor joined the team, the Giants went from the second worst defense in the NFL to the third best. The year before his debut they gave up 425 points; his first year they gave up 257 points. They had been one of the weakest teams in the NFL and were now, overnight, a contender. Of course, Taylor wasn’t the only change in the New York Giants between 1980 and 1981. There was one other important newcomer, Bill Parcells, hired first to coach the Giants’ defense and then the entire team.

Coach will probably flip out when he finds out I’m responsible for another unplanned pregnancy. I groan, feeling conflicted. I love Charlotte. With all my fucking heart. Seeing my ex only solidified how I feel about my cupcake. She’s amazing. So positive and loving. So sweet and thoughtful. Literally everything I want in a girlfriend. Definitely everything I want in a wife. But we’re not there yet. Got to get her to talk to me first. Have to convince her I’ll be there for her if she decides to have this baby. A baby with Charlotte. I close my eyes, and I can see it. My sweet woman cradling a little bundle. She’ll be a fantastic mother. Me conmueve. It chokes me up a little. Because I want that life. And in this moment, all of my anxiety fades away. So what if this baby pisses off Coach? So what if NFL teams think I’m a jackass? All that matters is getting Charlotte to understand I love her to the moon and back and I’ll be by her side come hell or high water.

At the start of each NFL season, before games have begun and injuries have occurred and expectations fail to meet reality, optimism is an organizational requirement. As the mindless blather goes, 'Every team is 0-0' and 'With a few breaks...' and 'If everyone lives up to their potential...' It makes no difference whether your franchise is plagued by a roster of talentless dopes, whether your coach is an alcoholic and your GM a heroin addict, whether you haven't won since Washington crossed the Delaware. This, at long last, will be the year!

Sean drove down to Ole Miss to have a word with Coach O. He didn’t think he could talk him out of sticking Michael in the starting lineup, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to anyway. He thought it would be good for Michael to see right away what he was up against—to learn that natural ability might not be enough to “get to the league.” But he worried that Coach O might not fully understand what a challenge big-time football would be for Michael. Michael had just turned nineteen. He’d never lifted weights or trained for football in the way that serious football players usually do. He hadn’t had the time. He had played fifteen games in high school on the offensive line. In less than a month, he’d be starting in the SEC, across the line of scrimmage from grown men of twenty-two who had spent the past four years majoring in football, and were just six months away from being drafted to play in the NFL. As these beasts came after him, he’d need to think on his feet. Coach O wasn’t one for sitting behind a desk. When he had people into his office at Ole Miss, he’d install them on his long black leather sofa while he marched back and forth, giving pep talks. The subject of Michael Oher brought out the student in him; when Sean came, he sat behind a desk. Coach O actually had a yellow pad to write on. He didn’t get up. He didn’t answer the phone. He too

Soon enough, MobilityWOD had morphed into our present company, The Ready State, and we were working on movement and mobility with all branches of the military; NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL players and coaches; Olympic athletes; university sports teams; Fortune 500 companies; individual CEO types; and thousands of others.

You show me any athlete at any level who gives maximum effort, and I will show you a player who will excel. It is not a matter of talent. It’s not a question of where you went in the draft. The question is do you have the heart of a champion? And at the heart of every champion I have ever coached is a dedicated effort to be the absolute best you can be. Results are important. But results don’t define who you are as a man. Success is not being a first-round draft pick. Success is using your God-given ability to give maximum effort every day—whether you’re in the NFL, teach school, or work construction.

What John Ayers was doing seemed routine. But to the few who knew, and watched, it was a thing of beauty. The ball is snapped and John Ayers sees Taylor coming, and slides quickly back one step and to his left. And as he slides, he steps to meet his future. He’s stepping into 1985, when the turf will be fast and he won’t be able to deal with Lawrence Taylor…. Another quick step, back and left, and it’s 1986, and he’s injured and on the sidelines when the Giants send Joe Montana to the hospital and the 49ers home on the way to their own Super Bowl victory…. A third quick step and he crouches like one power forward denying another access to the hoop. But now it’s 1987 and Coach Bill Walsh is advising John Ayers to retire. Ayers ignores the advice and then learns that Walsh won’t invite him back to training camp…. He takes his final quick step back and left and times his blow, to stop dead in his tracks the most terrifying force ever launched at an NFL quarterback. “I don’t think I’ve ever played against a football player who had more drive and intensity to get to the quarterback,” John Ayers will say, after it’s all over, and he’s been given the game ball by his teammates. “It was almost like he was possessed.”…But now it’s 1995, and John Ayers has just died of cancer, at forty-two, and left behind a wife and two children. Joe Montana charters a plane to fly a dozen teammates to Amarillo, Texas, to serve as pall-bearers. At the funeral of John Ayers the letter of tribute from Bill Walsh is read aloud.

Brew is mainly a run-blocking coach. He has only a nominal interest in the passing game. His bailiwick is biting someone in the fucking neck! He likes to get dirty. By that I mean that he likes for us to get dirty.

WHEN THE COWBOYS’ coaches and front office staff met at Love Field in early July for their trip to training camp in Forest Grove, Oregon, Tom Landry was noticeably grim. Charles Burton of the Morning News wrote that the coach “appeared about as excited as if he were preparing to drive to Grand Prairie for a civic club luncheon.

As Parcells developed as a head coach, he came to understand that creative tension produced better results. He preyed upon the insecurity of players. If his team was cruising along winning week after week, he manufactured a crisis to keep the players on edge. If they were losing, he had plenty of material at his disposal. Parcells knew Simms could take it, so he often used him for target practice. By picking on Simms, one of the faces of the franchise, the other players knew they would be held accountable.

They’ve had several conversations since that day in Owings Mills when Bisciotti fired him. “He said at some point we will sit down and have a glass of wine in that new house of yours,” Billick said. Billick had the perfect response. “It’s the least I can do, because you’re paying for it.

The 49ers didn’t have a first-round pick—it had been traded years earlier to the Bills in the O.J. Simpson trade—and Walsh was hoping to take Simms at the top of the second round. But the Giants took Simms seventh overall, and Walsh had to settle for Joe Montana with the last pick in the third round.

After the 1998 season Warner was included among the five Rams exposed on the expansion list for the new Cleveland Browns. The Browns passed on Warner, an unknown with virtually no playing experience outside of the Arena Football League and NFL Europe.

Goodell, Strong meet NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell met with Texas Coach Charlie Strong to talk about the core values Strong uses to run his program. "We discussed setting standards and taking a

Shanahan (the head coach) doesn't allow failure to take root.

I’ll also ask my quarterback at our Friday meeting to give me his fifteen favorite pass plays. Then I’ll get fifteen running plays from the coaches and I’ll script the first thirty plays.

Head coaches must always look out for their assistants.

The need to declare our independence and our dominance resonated with the entire team.

Especially if you’re the lone or first woman among men or you’re thrown into an unfamiliar situation. My time with the Cardinals taught me a few failsafe strategies for effectively achieving what you want. New situations are going to be tough, there’s no changing that. The “getting to know you” phase is difficult and awkward. My personal philosophy is to disarm them to charm them. Disarm Them to Charm Them: Show Your Lighter Side

Even though I was the person who accepted the job, I was never alone doing it. The spirit of all the women I’d played with was pulling for me the entire time, as soon as I’d taken the field with the Revolution to that last game with the Cardinals, and beyond, too.

We’re not in this big world alone, as individuals. We’re not playing by ourselves. Think about my coaching and playing with men. If it was just me and nobody was watching, would I have been brave enough to take those hits? If I didn’t believe in something bigger, would I have risked everything? No. But knowing that I was doing something for all the girls and women who’ve loved football for a very long time? Absolutely.

At home, on my court, I was somewhat alone in my ambition. Adults played, but few young girls hit the court like I did; maybe there were two others in my city. So, I challenged myself to play the boys. After all, what would those wonderful, powerful women who inspired me do? Take on the boys and beat them, of course!

Remember, you are never alone, so ask for help facing the monster. Find someone with a flashlight who will hold your hand and help you look at the problem.

It is so easy to get frustrated and distracted, and in those small battles, it is tempting to feel like you are all alone and on your own. Then the fights, the holds, the kicks—they feel personal, and it’s hard to see past yourself. The trick is to see the bigger picture, the bigger message, even when it comes in a very little package, like a young girl.

Think of me as your coach. I’m encouraging you to play big. I’ve taken hits on and off the field and broken barrier after barrier after barrier—a living testament to the fact that it can be done. I want you to do the same. There’s simply no stopping you. My hope is that by the end of this book, you’ll be inspired to dream the unimaginable. You’ll be unstuck from whatever is holding you back from getting out there and changing the world, your world or the world of someone you know and care about. From doing something you never thought doable. From blazing a trail not yet taken. I followed my dream without having a role model; there was no path to follow, no inkling that making it to the biggest stage in sport could happen for a woman. My point: you never know what’s out there to go for until it’s out there to go for. Remember that, too. In my gridiron journey, there was no certainty, only hope and a belief in something bigger. There was no way to envision myself in any of the places that I ultimately busted through because, as a woman, it was unimaginable.

As coaches, the greatest gift that we can give you is to help you get better. You never have to worry when we are coaching you up, because that means we see potential.

The greatest gift a coach can give a player is to make him or her better. And when a coach is calling a player out or pointing out flaws, though it feels rough, it’s because coaches see potential.

We were coaching him to make him better. And that he never had to worry as long as we were coaching him up and were able to see where he could improve. We saw potential.

American WOMEN are the best football players in the world. The need to declare our independence and our dominance resonated with the entire team.

Landry used the tools of the engineering profession to lead his team to twenty consecutive winning seasons, an NFL record. Landry was the first coach to use a computer.

Ryan was not only gregarious but also a happily married inamorato! (Around the facility, when the other coaches teased him about this episode, Ryan would retort affably, “I’m the only guy in history who gets in a sex scandal with his wife!”)

Dungy sees something that no one else does. He sees proof that his plan is starting to work. Tony Dungy had waited an eternity for this job. For seventeen years, he prowled the sidelines as an assistant coach, first at the University of Minnesota, then with the Pittsburgh Steelers, then the Kansas City Chiefs, and then back to Minnesota with the Vikings. Four times in the past decade, he had been invited to interview for head coaching positions with NFL teams. All four times, the interviews hadn’t gone well. Part of the problem was Dungy’s coaching philosophy. In his job interviews, he would patiently explain his belief that the key to winning was changing players’ habits. He wanted to get players to stop making so many decisions during a game, he said. He wanted them to react automatically, habitually. If he could instill the right habits, his team would win. Period. “Champions don’t do extraordinary things,” Dungy would explain. “They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.” How, the owners would ask, are you going to create those new habits? Oh, no, he wasn’t going to create new habits, Dungy would answer. Players spent their lives building the habits that got them to the NFL. No athlete is going to abandon those patterns simply because some new coach says to. So rather than creating new habits, Dungy was going to change players’ old ones. And the secret to changing old habits was using what was already inside players’ heads. Habits are a three-step loop—the cue, the routine, and the reward—but Dungy only wanted to attack the middle step, the routine. He knew from experience that it was easier to convince someone to adopt a new behavior if there was something familiar at the beginning and end.3.5 His coaching strategy embodied an axiom, a Golden Rule of habit change that study after study has shown is among the most powerful tools for creating change. Dungy recognized that you can never truly extinguish bad habits. Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine. That’s the rule: If you use the same cue, and provide the same reward, you can shift the routine and change the habit. Almost any behavior can be transformed if the cue and reward stay the same.

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.