I'm very observant. I see more than people think I'm seeing.
Herm Edwards
The thing you miss most, when you don't play and you don't coach, is the huddle. You miss the huddle. You miss the ability to walk in the room where collectively players are from everywhere. Every race, every religion, every color. It don't matter, because you've got a common goal. You're trying to be something special as a team.
There's good times and bad times. That's part of the coaching. You live with the ups and downs of it but at the end, it's about not only winning games, it's about developing men.
You play to win the game.
I'm a neat freak.
If you draft a player to be a backup, why did you draft him? You're drafting a guy because you think he's worthy of being drafted at that spot, but you're also drafting him because you think he can compete. If you're going to say, 'This guy's a backup,' - really? That doesn't make any sense to me.
It has to be the right fit. Coaching is about fits.
In life, there's second chances. But that doesn't mean everyone gets a second chance with your team. That's where your moral compass comes in.
The thing about wisdom is you store the past in your head.
I've always said that your attitude is your best friend and your worst enemy.
That's the great thing about sports: You play to win, and I don't care if you don't have any wins. You go play to win. When you start telling me it doesn't matter, then retire. Get out. 'Cause it matters.
Training camp gets long when you compete against your own guys.
The world of football has changed. 'We're going to start a freshman quarterback!' 'Oooh really?!' That was taboo. It's not a shock anymore.
I think I bring a good perspective because I did a lot of things in the NFL - player, head coach, assistant and scout.
No one player is bigger than the team.
You get fired. You get cut. That's just part of it, man. You don't worry about it, but what you do is you make sure that you left it better for the next guy.
You don't quit in sports. You retire. You don't get to quit. It's not an option.
I wanted to give back to football what it's given me. So, I decided, 'I'm going to be a coach.'
When I wake up, I don't worry about why the mountain is there. I just start climbing.
If all you ever play with a cornerback in there is man to man, it is a disadvantage.
Coaches? They can talk. I tell them: 'Just make sure before you open your mouth you've researched what you're about to say. Don't just say stuff. And if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything.'
When you put pressure on the quarterback, everything looks a lot better.
It doesn't matter where you grow up, what color you are, what religion you are. It's just a bunch of guys that come together for a common cause. Let's go win this game. It's called team.
If you pay a QB $10 million, you don't want him to run the ball.
I am a head coach in the NFL today because of the opportunity the Coaching Fellowship provided me. The program is really the thing that jump-starts your career.
When you have kids, you never think of burying your own child.
Coaches are well aware, especially at quarterback, that it's not the system but the player who comes first.
I'm big on integrity.
What makes us different? Well, besides our skin color and our nationality and maybe our religion, nothing. We all want the same thing, we all want to have success in America.
I grew up in the era of the desegregation program. I actually got bussed to a predominately white high school. I didn't have a choice.
The rules of the game really have given the offense an advantage, especially with pass interference.
I believe this, we are all gifted for the talent - God blesses everybody with a talent. Mine was to play football. Some are to be scientists. Some are to be doctors. Sometimes because of the situation you grow up in, you can never display your talent because you can't get out of that situation.
It used to be that the hardest thing to cover was underthrown balls. Then coaches began to think, 'So why not start throwing back-shoulder fades?'
When you're on TV, you're still coaching, believe it or not. You're just coaching America, you're not coaching one team.
Curtis Martin just has to be Curtis Martin, and whatever that is, that's good enough. He doesnt have to be Clark Kent or Lois Lane.
Was I hurt sometimes? Yeah. But not to the point where I couldn't play. I think we all go through it. Some guys escape it. Some guys don't. There's no secret formula.
I was a bit of a rebel when I was young.
I grew up in the early '60s, and there was a lot of civil rights, a lot of unrest in our country.
My passion is from my mom. She was passionate about leaving Germany and coming to America and making a life for her and her family. My father - discipline, a chain of command, it works this way.
To be quite honest, and anybody will tell you, growing up I was going to be a pro athlete. I didn't have any option. That was my way out.
As a coach, you're like a teacher. You don't give the players their talent. God gives them talent, but you can give them knowledge, and you can give them information.
You're in pro football, it's kind of interesting, because when you win, you draft last. In college football, you recruit. You gotta go after guys.
Too often, people equate discipline with cursing. When you go to Catholic school, the nuns don't curse a word, but you get discipline.
People who've watched me on television, they go, 'Oh, that's who this guy is.' So when I walk into their home, they say, 'Coach, you're that same guy! We trust you with our son.'
I used to tell people I was 6-foot-4. And with that afro, I was.
The greatest thing I could say about my son, and this is what you always worry about with your kids, that they kinda outgrow their Mom and Dad. But for him, when I see him, when he calls me Dad, and he can still hug me, he's still like my little boy. Even around his friends, he still calls me Dad.
You add a good receiver and that will take pressure off your quarterback.
I do the right thing on purpose. I don't do it by accident.
We learn a lot of life lessons in how we play this great game, and I've been fortunate enough to be involved in it at every level.
College has become a wide-open game - a lot of short passes, quick passes. Then you go to the pros and it's a whole different ballgame - things are happening faster, the patterns have to be more precise. Getting off the line of scrimmage is more difficult.
