Nfl Lawrence Quotes

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.

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.

Parcells believed Taylor’s greatness was an act of will, a refusal to allow the world to understand him as anything less than great. “That’s why I loved him so much,” he said. “He responded to anything that threatened his status.” When in the middle of his career Taylor became addicted to cocaine, Parcells interpreted the problem as a simple extension of the man’s character. Lawrence Taylor trusted in one thing, the power of his own will. He assumed that his will could control NFL football games, and that it could also control his own chemical desires.

A mediados de los ochenta Porter ejerció de consejero de la NFL (National Football League, la Liga Nacional de Fútbol americano) que estaba en pleitos con la USFL (United States Football League). Porter caracterizó la disputa como una «guerra de guerrillas» y sugirió diversas estrategias muy agresivas, como convencer a las cadenas de televisión de que rompieran sus contratos con la USFL, fichar a hurtadillas a los mejores jugadores de la USFL mientras se animaba a los peores de la NFL a hacer lo contrario, y procurar integrar a los propietarios más potentes de la USFL en la NFL mientras se trataba de arruinar a los equipos más débiles de esa liga. Todas estas acciones se citaron como pruebas cuando la USFL intentó cobrar daños y perjuicios de la NFL por prácticas anticompetitivas. Al final, se acordó que la NFL había violado la ley, aunque solo se pagaron unos daños y perjuicios irrisorios. El adjunto de Porter reconoció que no se habían considerado los temas legales cuando se le ofreció la consultoría a la NFL; la defensa de la NFL fue que había ignorado el consejo.[24]