Football Quotes: Famous, Funny and Otherwise

Every time you lose you die a little; not all of your organs, a portion of you; maybe just your liver. ~ George Allen, Sr.

Every time you win, you're reborn; when you lose, you die a little. ~ George Allen, Sr. 

The future is now! ~ George Allen, Sr.

When we get to the future, I'll decide the future. ~ George Allen, Sr.

You have to play this game like somebody just hit your mother with a two-by-four. ~ Dan Birdwell

I'd run over my own mother to win a Super Bowl. ~ Joe Jacobi, Washington Redskins


I'd run over Joe's mother, too. ~ Matt Millen, Oakland Raiders


If my mother put on a helmet and shoulder pads and a uniform that wasn't the same as the one I was wearing, I'd run over her if she were in my way. And I love my mother. ~ Bo Jackson


You guys know how this works. You ask questions and I don't answer them. ~ Mike Shanahan to Washington media reporters

In a land of freedom, we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness. ~ Tweet by Robert Griffin III @RGIII


We gotta stop that Buddy ball. Hit everyone you see. Hit that running back. Then run up in the stands and slap their mommas. ~ NY Giants player as quoted on NFL Films

Most football teams are temperamental. That's 90% temper and 10% mental. ~ Doug Plank

One accusation you can't throw at me is that I've always done my best. - Alan Shearer

I'd rather play in front of a full house than an empty crowd. ~ Johnny Giles

Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. ~ Vince Lombardi


Winning isn't everything. Men, it's the only thing. ~ Red Sanders


Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything. ~ Vince Lombardi

Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything that comes in second. ~ Bear Bryant


Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. ~ Vince Lombardi


If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score? ~ Vince Lombardi

When you win, nothing hurts. ~ Joe Namath

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender. ~ Vince Lombardi

Success is not forever and failure isn't fatal. ~ Don Shula

You're never guaranteed about next year. People ask what you think of next season, you have to seize the opportunities when they are in front of you. ~ Brett Favre

Sure the home field is an advantage -- but so is having a lot of talent. ~ Dan Marino

Fellas, hey fellas, this is why you lift all them weights. This is why you do all that sh^t. ~ Bill Parcells

A successful coach needs a patient wife, loyal dog and a great quarterback, not necessarily in that order. ~ Bud Grant 

Games like this are why I play football. ~ Billy Kilmer just before a Redskins-Cowboys game

Football is an incredible game. Sometimes it's so incredible, it's unbelievable. ~ Tom Landry

You are what your record says you are. ~ Bill Parcells

You are only as good as your last play. ~ NFL cliche. (Shouldn't this be "as good as your next play?")


Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. ~ John Wooden. Not a football guy, but it fits.

I'm bored, I'm broke and I'm back. ~ John Riggins returning to football after a one year hold-out

Lighten up, Sandy baby. ~ John Riggins said to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend any amount of time with a Cowboys fan. ~ John Riggins

Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings. ~ George F. Will

Baseball is what we were; football is what we have become.- Mary McGrory, Washington Post

Every game is an opportunity to measure yourself against your own potenial. ~ Bud Wilkinson

"If you believe, then unbelievable things can sometimes be possible." ~Tim Tebow. 


Beating 'SC isn't a matter of life and death. It's more important than that. ~ Red Sanders on the UCLA-USC rivalry

I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it. ~ Gale Sayers

I just wrap my arms around the whole backfield and peel 'em one by one until I get to the ball carrier. Him I keep. ~ "Big Daddy" Lipscomb


Football is very well a good game for rough girls, but not for delicate boys. ~ Oscar Wilde


When in doubt, punt! ~ John Heisman

Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble this football. ~ John Heisman

I feel like I'm the best, but you're not going to get me to say that. ~ Jerry Rice


I wish I could say something classy and inspirational, but that just wouldn't be our style. Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory...lasts forever. ~ Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), The Replacements

Child, please. ~ Chad (Ochocinco) Johnson

I didn't quit football because I failed a drug test. I failed a test because I was ready to quit football. ~ Ricky Williams 

I don't want to win enough games to be put on NCAA probation. I want to win enough to warrant investigation. ~ Bob Devaney

If you ain’t holding, you ain’t trying. ~~ Lyle Alzado

Throw me the damn ball. ~ Keyshawn Johnson

Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein. ~ Joe Theismann

There are no traffic jams along the extra mile." ~ Roger Staubach

The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer. ~ John Madden

The street to obscurity is paved with athletes who can perform great feats before friendly crowds. ~ George Allen, Sr.

Maybe a good rule in life is never become too important to do your own laundry. ~ Barry Sanders

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. ~ Archie Griffen

Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors. ~ Frank Gifford

Football isn't a contact sport, it's a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport. ~ Duffy Daugherty

A tie is like kissing your sister. ~~ Duffy Daugherty

That's old man football. ~ Missouri DT Sheldon Richardson speaking of the Georgia Bulldog offense

I wouldn't ever set out to hurt anyone deliberately unless it was, you know, important - like a league game or something. ~~ Dick Butkus

Football is, after all, a wonderful way to get rid of your aggression without going to jail for it. ~ Heywood Hale Broun

I think football would become an even better game if someone could invent a ball that kicks back. ~ David Morecambe

I'd catch a punt naked, in the snow, in Buffalo, for a chance to play in the NFL. ~ Steve Henderson



I like to believe that my best hits border on felonious assault. ~~Jack Tatum


They're killing me, Whitey. They're killing me. ~ Lou Saban, referring to officials, as captured by NFL Films

This is the NFL. You know what that means? "Not For Long" if you keep making lousy calls like that one. ~ Jerry Glanville comment to an official, captured by NFL Films

Football is not a game but a religion, a metaphysical island of fundamental truth in a highly verbalized, disguised society, a throwback of 30,000 generations of anthropological time. ~ Arnold Mandell

American football makes rugby look like a Tupperware party. ~ Sue Lawley

I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid. ~ Terry Bradshaw


He couldn't spell "cat" if you spotted him the "c" and the "t." ~ Hollywood Henderson speaking of Terry Bradshaw

College football is a sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture. ~~ Elbert Hubbard

George Halas throws nickels around like manhole covers. ~ Mike Ditka

He treats us all the same—like dogs. ~~ Green Bay Tackle Henry Jordan, describing Coach Vince Lombardi.

He treats us like men. He lets us wear earrings. ~~ Torrin Polk, on his coach, John Jenkins

Lombardi, Shula, Landry and Gibbs were innovators. Bill Walsh was a visionary . . . . ~ Michael Wilbon



Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence. ~Erma Bombeck



If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead. ~ Erma Bombeck

The reason women don't play football is because eleven of them would never wear the same outfit in public. ~ Phyllis Diller

If you're mad at your kid, you can either raise him to be a nose tackle or send him out to play on the freeway. It's about the same. ~ Bob Golic

When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team. ~~ George Raveling

Football is easy if you are crazy as hell. ~ Bo Jackson


I've been big ever since I was little. ~ William "The Refrigerator" Perry

There are two kinds of people in the world, Notre Dame lovers and Notre Dame haters. And, quite frankly, they're both a pain in the ass. ~~ Dan Devine, former Notre Dame football coach

Men are clinging to football on a level we aren't even aware of. For centuries, we ruled everything, and now, in the last ten minutes, there are all these incursions by women. It's our Alamo. ~ Tony Kornheiser

Speed is not your fastest, but your slowest man. No back can run faster than his interference. ~ Jock Sutherland

Just remember the words of Patrick Henry, kill me or let me live. ~ Bill Peterson

We can't run. We can't pass. We can't stop the run. We can't stop the pass. We can't kick. Other than that, we're just not a very good football team right now. ~ Bruce Coslet

Playoffs? PLAYOFFS? ~ Jim Mora at his famous meltdown.

Seventy-five percent of the world is covered by water. The rest is covered by Fred Smoot. ~ Fred Smoot


Hawaii doesn’t win many games in the United States. ~~ Lee Corso



I'm really happy for Coach Cooper and the guys who have been around here for six or seven years, especially our seniors. ~ Bob Hoying, Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback after winning the Big Ten title


The NFL, like life, is full of idiots. ~ Randy Cross


I feel like I'm the best, but you are not going to get me to say that. ~ Jerry Rice


Look up, get up, but don't ever give up. ~ Michael Irvin to his sons at his Hall of Fame induction


When I read about the evils of smoking crack, I gave up reading. ~ Michael Irvin


I can attack a man's weakness and beat him. Or I can attack a man's strengths and break him. ~ Michael Irvin

The past doesn't buy you much. ~ Joe Gibbs upon his return to coaching


I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first. ~ George Rogers


I only have two things going for me: my arms, my legs and my brain. ~ Michael Vick (allegedly)


You only get one shot at a second chance. ~ Michael Vick

Football doesn't build character. It reveals character. ~ Marv Levy

Football is an honest game. It's true to life. It's a game about sharing. It's a team game. So is life. ~ Joe Namath


When success finds you, it's because you were looking for it. ~ Larry Fitzgerald


O.J. Simpson, shorn of the magic he once possessed, is am emblem of the fact that the star athlete doesn't possess the magic, the fans give it to him. The fan giveth, and the fan taketh away. ~~ Neely Tucker, Washington Post 
(10/04/2007)



Football today is far too much a sport for the few who can play it well; the rest of us, and too many of our children, get our exercise from from climbing up the seats in the stadiums, or from walking across the room to turn on our television sets. ~ John F. Kennedy


I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you if I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football. ~ Barack Obama

I had offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, who were pretty hard up for linemen in those days. If I had gone into professional football, the name Jerry ford might be a household word today. ~ Gerald R. Ford

All I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to football. ~ Albert Camus


I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master. ~ Theodore Roosevelt in letters to his children

Many of the above quotes were found on http://www.quotegarden.com/football.html and http://quotations.about.com/. The rest were harvested over time as I came across them.


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Football Quotes