Here’s a hard-hitting collection of awesome, inspirational football quotes in a quick-glance, alphabetic format. Motivate your players, inspire fans, or simply amuse yourself with these funny and motivational quotations. Have you loved football your whole life? These are for you.
Good Football Quotations
I feel like we can run the table.
Aaron Rodgers
This wasn’t just a shot in the dark – It was an optimistic belief in my teammates.
Aaron Rodgers
R-E-L-A-X.
Aaron Rodgers
A football coach is a person who is willing to lay down your life for the good of his team.
Author Unknown
Playing football in the morning is like eating cabbage for breakfast.
Author Unknown
Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day — it all just hurts.
Tom Brady – Check out the Patriots Fan Guide
Funny Quotes
You have to play this game like somebody just hit your mother with a two-by-four.
Dan Birdwell
Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not a coincidence.
Erma Bombeck
The Rose Bowl is the only bowl I’ve ever seen that I didn’t have to clean.
Erma Bombeck
If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.
Erma Bombeck
Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?
Jim Bouton
Tom Brady
Football is unconditional love.
I play a complicated position in an intensely team-oriented game.
The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.
You don’t like to see your guys take the field without you because it makes you feel like, man, maybe they really don’t need me out there, which is kind of humbling.
Mentally, the only players who survive in the pros are the ones able to manage all their responsibilities.
In Boston, they love their sports celebrities. And it’s great!
I don’t think there’s a lot of carry-over from year to year. I don’t think anybody cares what you did the year before.
Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.
I’m an emotional person. Sometimes I can’t help it.
With football, you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren’t playing so well, you don’t have to turn those two-game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks.
Brady Pigskin Quotations
If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.
I’m much more comfortable and confident running out on the field in front of 70,000 people instead of standing in front of a camera trying to say some lines.
We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.
When you hang with a bunch of 300-pound linemen, you tend to find the places that are the greasiest and serve the most food.
I don’t care about three years ago – I don’t care about two years ago. I don’t care about last year. The only thing I care about is this week.
We’ve played golf together many, many times and I’ve always had a good time with him. (on Donald Trump)
Drew Brees Football Quotes
We’ve got something special going here. We want to keep it going. You don’t have many opportunities like this, and the window of opportunity for us is now.
I expect to win out there.
There’s always a little bit of personal satisfaction when you prove someone wrong.
I don’t know about voodoo, but I believe in destiny.
I hope our hopes and aspirations are bigger than setting records.
We all understand what we signed up for, but then again, you don’t want this to be a game that puts people in wheelchairs at age 40.
The only team that believed in me was the Saints, and I feel like I owe them a great debt of gratitude. I want to give them what they saw in me—a guy who could lead this team to a championship.
We always try to mix it up—three-step drop, five-step drop, seven-step drop, naked bootleg. We spread out all these kinds of things to keep the defensive pass rush unbalanced.
I was brought here [New Orleans] for a reason. I feel like I can make a tremendous impact, not only with the team but in the community.
I’m just feeling like it was meant to be. What can I say? The birth of my son, and in the first year of his life, we won a Super Bowl Championship.
Touchdown Breesus
I was honored to spend time with the President on an issue that is clearly important to him. I was also impressed by his wide receiver skills.
We just believed in ourselves, and we knew that we had an entire city and maybe an entire country behind us. What can I say? I tried to imagine what this moment would be like for a long time, and it’s better than expected.
The Super Bowl is a realistic goal.
It’s my job to get us in good plays, or more importantly, out of bad plays.
I don’t believe that you can be too short as a quarterback. It’s not about height.
I get people stopping me on the street like twenty times a day, telling me how great it makes them feel and how it just helps them to go about their day and rebuild their lives. It means a tremendous amount.
When you care about a guy beyond just the field, that’s when the chemistry becomes really special.
I expect to make big plays. And when I don’t, I’m upset about it.
Four years ago, whoever thought this would have happened?
Classic Football Sayings
- We had some sickly youngsters last week. We’ve got to build some immune systems — more pushups, more whole milk.
Jim Harbaugh - Football is, after all, a wonderful way to get rid of your aggressions without going to jail for it.
Heywood Hale Brown - You know, that’s what good quarterbacks do, they make plays when things don’t go perfectly, which a lot of times they don’t, and Tom does a good job of that.
Bill Belichick on Tom Brady
Check out Tom Brady’s Super Bowl record and past winners.
Paul Brown Football Quotes
You can learn a line from a win and a book from a defeat.
The key to winning is poise under stress.
A winner never whines.
When you win, say nothing. When you lose, say less.
Football is a game of errors. The team that makes the fewest errors in a game usually wins.
Paul Bear Bryant Football Quotes
There’s no substitute for guts.
Don’t give up at half-time. Concentrate on winning the second half.
Three rules for coaching: 1.) Surround yourself with people who can’t live without football. 2.) Recognize winners. They come in all forms. 3.) Have a plan for everything.
Notable and Quotable
Football is not a contact sport. It’s a collision sport. Dancing is a good example of a contact sport.
Duffy Daugherty
The reason women don’t play football is because eleven of them would never wear the same outfit in public.
Phyllis Diller
To succeed, you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.
Tony Dorsett
I’ve always tried to coach people the way I would like to be coached; positively and encouragingly rather than with criticism and fear . . .. I’ve tried to be as fair as possible.
Tony Dungy
Looking for inspiration soccer fans? Check out our soccer quotations.
Brett Favre
- I consider adversity to be good sometimes, you know.
- You’re never guaranteed about next year. People ask what you think of next season, you have to seize the opportunities when they’re in front of you.
- Every game I’ve ever played, regardless if it was pre-season or Super Bowl, meant the same to me, and I laid it all on the line.
- I know it’s not a one-man team win or lose.
- There wasn’t a better teacher or mentor out there than Reggie White, on or off the field.
- Maybe I’m old-school, but I always thought you honor a contract.
- Life deals you a lot of lessons, some people learn from it, some people don’t.
- I’ve always been a Packer, always will be a Packer.
- I think my stubbornness, hardheadedness, and stupidity is what has allowed me to play for 20 years.
- I’d write over and over, ‘I will not throw into coverage.’
Clever Football Quotations
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
Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.
Frank Gifford
A good football coach needs a patient wife, a loyal dog, and a great quarterback – but not necessarily in that order.
Bud Grant – Learn about being a Vikings Fan
Let’s face it, you have to have a slightly recessive gene that has a little something to do with the brain to go out on the football field and beat your head against other human beings on a daily basis.
Tim Green
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.
Archie Griffen
Tip: These quotations make great content for high school football posters and locker room signs.
Lou Holtz Quotations
I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.
Coaching is nothing more than eliminating mistakes before you get fired.
Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.
Don’t be a spectator. Don’t let life pass you by.
On this team, we’re all united in a common goal: to keep my job.
Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.
They say a tie is like kissing your sister. I guess that is better than kissing your brother.
I asked you to pack your headgear and shoulder pads, but more importantly, your defense and your kicking game, because that’s what wins a game like this.
It’s not the load that breaks you down – it’s the way you carry it.
If you burn your neighbor’s house down, it doesn’t make yours look any better.
You’ll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.
When all is said and done, more is said than done.
Holtz on Football
Don’t tell your problems to people: eighty percent don’t care, and the other twenty percent are glad you have them.
Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.
The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.
If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.
Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.
I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.
No one has ever drowned in sweat.
It’s a better view if you’re standing up than if you’re laying down.
How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.
Calvin Johnson Quotes
The goal every year is to win the Super Bowl, not just to get to the playoffs, not just to win a few games.
I’m just a worker.
During the season, I dodge the media. After practice, I need to be taking care of my body and recovering.
You didn’t want to bring home anything but an A or a B. To my mom, a C was like an F.
You can’t get down and think things won’t get better or they definitely won’t.
Hopefully, I can finish my degree before I get done playing and work with my foundation.
I like to run the slants. The slants are cool. I like routes that you can catch the ball running.
There are times when you catch a ball and really didn’t even see that ball. You’re like, ‘That couldn’t have been all me.’
I’m not going to lie and say that I’m good at Madden. There are some good players out there. There are some good players on the team. I get skunked all of the time.
Colin Kaepernick Sayings
I just want to improve game to game and try to get better.
Going out on the field frantic isn’t going to help you score points. You have to try to lead your team.
Something you’re aware of being a quarterback coming here—you have expectations, and you want to live up to those.
I have to learn more in order to preserve my body.
It is really like a family. We are around each other more than we are around anybody else. The time we spend together, and the hard work we put in together, it is going to build a close team.
You’re always going to be mad about a bad play.
God has brought me this far. He has laid out a phenomenal path for me. And I can’t do anything but thank him.
Score a touchdown, kiss your tattoo. Kaepernicking!
There are a lot of other parts on this team that do great things to make it easy for me to go out there.
Being an NFL quarterback there’s a lot of advantages that come with it. There are a lot of doors that open when you’re a quarterback but at the same time, there’s a lot of scrutiny. There are a lot of things you can’t do as well.
Hayden Fry Quotes
When it’s football season, I’m all football.
In football, like in life, you must learn to play within the rules of the game.
Welcome to the Salvation Army. I’ve never been associated with an offense so nice about giving the ball away.
We’ll take what the other team gives us. We’ll scratch where it itches.
George Halas
Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.
Nothing is work unless you’d rather be doing something else.
If you live long enough, lots of nice things happen.
Many people flounder about in life because they do not have a purpose, an objective toward which to work.
Don’t do anything in practice that you wouldn’t do in the game.
You can achieve only that which you will do.
Find out what other teams want to do. Then take it away from them.
Football IQ
When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn.
Tom Landry
Right after the game, say as little as possible.
Tom Landry
American football makes rugby look like a Tupperware party.
Sue Lawley
If you can believe it, the mind can achieve it.
Ronnie Lott
When in doubt, punt!
John Heisman
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little “extra.”
Jimmy Johnson
College football is a sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture.
Elbert Hubbard
Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.
Bo Jackson
Alfred Hitchcock on Football
There are several differences between a football game and a revolution. For one thing, a football game usually lasts longer and the participants wear uniforms. Also, there are usually more casualties in a football game. The object of the game is to move a ball past the other team’s goal line. This counts as six points. No points are given for lacerations, contusions, or abrasions, but then no points are deducted, either. Kicking is very important in football. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic players even kick the ball, occasionally.
Alfred Hitchcock
Andrew Luck Football Quotes
Peyton was the best, my favorite quarterback growing up.
My dad hasn’t said much about his college days. Oh, a few times, he might start telling stories. And I’ve seen some highlights film of him from college. I remember thinking he looked really small. Which is funny, because growing up, I thought he was a pretty big guy.
No one prepares to lose … we prepare to win.
I realize that as the quarterback, you have to assume some sort of leadership role because you have to talk in the huddle on every play, and you’re essentially giving out orders to the team. But in my mind, I have to prove myself on the field before I can start asserting a leadership role.
The victories are what I judge things on.
I think the preseason helps a lot, just to feel a little bit about the speed of the game.
I’ve been lucky enough to be around some great coaches, all the way from Pop Warner to now.
Hopefully one day I can be up there with Peyton in terms of history.
It’s fun to learn a new playbook.
Facebook and Instagram Captions
The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.
John Madden
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
You’ve got a goal in life. I’ve got a goal. Now, all we need is a football team.
Groucho Marx
Baseball is what we were. Football is what we have become.
Mary McGrory
Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever.
Vince McKewin, from the movie The Replacements
If “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, what a Merry Christmas we’d have.
Don Meredith
We’ll fight ’em until hell freezes over, then we’ll fight ’em on the ice.
Dutch Meyer
When it comes to football, God is prejudiced – toward big, fast kids.
Chuck Mills
Football Phrases
Always be prepared to start.
Joe Montana (you might like this list of 49ers Fantasy Names)
There’s no thrill like throwing a touchdown pass.
Joe Montana
Winners, I am convinced, imagine their dreams first. They want it with all their heart and expect it to come true. There is, I believe, no other way to live.
Joe Montana
Cause there’s only one reason for doing anything that you set out to do. if you don’t want to be the best, then there’s no reason going out and trying to accomplish anything.
Joe Montana
You learn you can do your best even when it’s hard, even when you’re tired and maybe hurting a little bit. It feels good to show some courage.
Joe Namath
When you win, nothing hurts.
Joe Namath
Motivational Football Quotes
Before you can win a game, you have to not lose it.
Chuck Noll
He was the only man I ever saw who ran his own interference.
Steve Owen about Bronko Nagurski
I like linebackers. I collect ’em. You can’t have too many good ones.
Bill Parcells
Besides pride, loyalty, discipline, heart, and mind, confidence is the key to all the locks.
Joe Paterno
The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.
Joe Paterno
You need to play with supreme confidence, or else you’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.
Joe Paterno
You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.
Joe Paterno
I want to be remembered as the guy who gave his all whenever he was on the field.
Walter Payton
Adrian Peterson
I dedicate myself and work hard in the weight room and treat every practice as if it were a game.
When I go out on the field, I just put it in my mind that I’m playing for my family.
I definitely run upright, and I’ve got pretty good speed.
I’ve been running like this since I was seven.
I’m pretty sure I could outrun the whole Dallas Cowboys team.
My dad means a lot to me. He’s the one who put a football in my hands.
People say I’m injury-prone but that’s definitely not true.
I run angry. Football allows me to take out some of my pain on the field.
It feels good to give back to the people who support you.
I have to continue to be a great leader and contribute in any way that I can, and get guys to follow suit. That’s how you turn a team around.
I’m really not vocal and expressive, but I’m starting to get more comfortable to open up.
I remember my mistakes more than my success.
I have the mentality that if you come in playing not to get hurt, that’s when you’re going to get hurt. So I play relentlessly.
Adversity makes me hungrier. I thrive on being able to make a way out of “no way.”
I want to win four or five championship rings. That’s how I dream. I dream big.
I want to be the best player to ever play this game.
Game Quotes
Most football players are temperamental. That’s 90 percent temper and 10 percent mental.
Doug Plank
At the base of it was the urge, if you wanted to play football, to knock someone down, that was what the sport was all about, the will to win closely linked with contact.
George Plimpton
I resigned as the Broncos head coach because of illness and fatigue. The fans were sick and tired of me.
John Ralston
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
Philip Rivers
I hate to lose.
I’m excited about the opportunity to get out there and show not only what I can do but, more importantly, what this team can do with me in there.
I don’t like to sit still.
I’m out there having as good a time as I did in the backyard since I was five-years-old.
You want to be playing your best in December and hopefully, it’ll carry over into January.
It’s time for me to step up and take control. That’s what I’ve always been used to.
Anybody who has watched me play knows I’m not one of the fastest guys, but I understand what’s going on around me and what to look for. I know what the defense is doing.
I’ve been calling plays in the huddle since I was seven.
I’ve already developed trust in my teammates – as a player and as a person.
I’m getting better every day.
Knute Rockne
I found that prayers work best when you have big players.
Build up your weaknesses until they become strong points.
Win or lose, do it fairly.
Drink the first. Sip the second slowly. Skip the third.
One loss is good for the soul. Too many losses are not good for the coach.
We count on winning. And if we lose, don’t beef. And the best way to prevent beefing is – don’t lose.
It isn’t necessary to see a good tackle. You can hear it.
There is no need for me to continue unless I’m able to improve.
The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven.
Football is a game played with arms, legs, and shoulders but mostly from the neck up.
On the road, we’re somebody else’s guests – and we play in a way that they’re not going to forget we visited them.
A coach’s greatest asset is his sense of responsibility – the reliance placed on him by his players.
One man practicing sportsmanship is far better than a hundred teaching it.
Matt Ryan
I must hide my emotions pretty well because I get fired up before the games. I get anxious every week. It doesn’t change.
Anytime you turn the football over in this league, it’s tough to come back and win the football game.
Away from football, I’m happiest just spending time with my family and friends. They’re some of the few people who don’t ask you about football all the time, and that’s nice.
You can’t worry about all the long-term stuff. You just have to go out there and have confidence in yourself.
As a quarterback, you’ve got to protect the football.
I’ve always been of the belief that if you prepare well, you can go out there and play your game.
You find a balance between preparing for football and finding time to rest and take care of the things you need to lead a normal life.
Quarterbacks make their living on third down and in the red zone.
When you get out there and you start playing the game, you know you’ve put in a great week of preparation. That allows you to just go out there and play.
Community is something that’s been important to me. It was important to me while I was at Boston College.
Matty Ice Football Quotes
One of the great things about being a Falcon is the player-development department. They do such a great job of helping with the transition.
The first time you run out on that field and realize it’s for real. Whether you win or lose, it’s just a ton of fun.
After the season, you need to remember to pace yourself before you get to training camp and the regular season.
The guys around me are playing really well and when you have that, it kind of makes a quarterback look better.
I want to be around here a long time, with this team, go to the playoffs and hopefully win a championship.
It’s a long season. There are going to be some ups and downs.
I think just the opportunity to play, to be out on that field and realize it’s the NFL and you’re playing at the highest level of competition there is, that’s pretty incredible.
Motivational Football Sayings
I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is; you can make it.
Gale Sayers
How fast does William Perry run? It all depends on what speed you run the projector!
Buddy Ryan
Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.
Mike Singletary
Anyone can support a team that is winning – it takes no courage. But to stand behind a team to defend a team when it is down and really needs you, that takes a lot of courage.
Bart Starr
Athletic competition clearly defines the unique power of our attitude.
Bart Starr
If you work harder than somebody else, chances are you’ll beat him though he has more talent than you.
Bart Starr
Gridiron Wisdom
There are few secrets in football. So execute.
Hank Stram
The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.
Steve Young
You cannot win if you cannot run.
Hank Stram
When you get old, everything is hurting. When I get up in the morning, it sounds like I’m making popcorn.
Lawrence Taylor
Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done.
Johnny Unitas
I always thought I could play pro ball. I had confidence in my ability, You have to. If you don’t who will?
Johnny Unitas
If you don’t invest very much, then defeat doesn’t hurt very much, and winning is not very exciting.
Dick Vermeil
If you train hard, you’ll not only be hard, you’ll be hard to beat.
Herschel Walker
Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
George F. Will
Russell Wilson Quotes
These Russell Wilson football quotes give you insight into the mind of the great Seahawks’ QB.
If you’re dating a woman that’s way out of your league, ask her to marry you. (At 2016 UW-Madison commencement address.)
If you can throw a football 80 yards, for some reason people think that’s pretty cool.
I remember my dad asking me one time, and it’s something that has always stuck with me: “Why not you Russ?” You know, why not me? Why not me in the Super Bowl?
We’ll do whatever it takes to score as many points as we can—and definitely one more point than the opponent.
I’ve tried to do everything possible to prepare myself and prepare our football team to be great.
And if you’re playing New England in the Super Bowl and you’ve got 26 seconds left and you’re down by four and it’s second and goal on their one-yard line, try not to throw an interception. That last one is purely hypothetical, though, of course.
More Russelling’ Takes
I’m not about flash.
I don’t think I’ve arrived. I think I’m continuing to get there, getting closer and closer to where I want to go. But I’m not there yet.
Every game’s a championship game. When we focus that way, get prepared that way—that this is it, you know, this is the last one, the biggest one—you get ready, you get amped up, you get that laser focus and you’re ready to play.
Separation comes from preparation.
I miss my dad every single day. People have asked me if I had five more minutes with him, what would I say to him? But I wouldn’t say anything at all. I would just hug him. That’s what I would do.
I know the coaches definitely trust me and my ability to throw the football.
With my dad passing away, he’s always watching me—a big smile on his face, watching every snap on the 50-yard line.
I have high expectations of myself. I always have, and I always will. That will never waver.
Here’s something I really have learned: you can’t do it alone. You’ve got to surround yourself with good people.
Because if you know what you’re capable of, if you’re always prepared, and you keep things in perspective, then life has a way of turning no into yes.
And when there’s a 300-pound guy chasing me down the field, with a big G on the side of his helmet-wearing green and yellow, the last thing I’m thinking about is “How do I use my liberal arts degree?”
Wilson Sounds Off
Because if you’re earning a degree from UW–Madison, the question isn’t whether you have something to offer the world. You definitely have something to offer the world. The question is how and whether you’ll do it.
I would say good luck, but I don’t believe in good luck. Go make it happen.
The first pitch is a slider, and what do I do with it… swing and miss. Next pitch, a slider again, strike two, I shouldn’t have swung. I’m one strike away from losing the game. But then he throws me a fastball. And what do I do with it? Wham. Hit it over the fence.
Now, everyone in the stands that day saw the game-winning home run. But they probably didn’t notice the guy who spent all those innings on the edge of the dugout, with a helmet on his head and a bat in his hand. But if I hadn’t stayed prepared like that, for 10 or 11 innings, that home run – that never would have happened.
Ways to Use These Football Quotations
- On signs for lockers and in the locker room.
- In emails and team communications.
- At practice or in film sessions.
- In playbooks.
- To motivate your team.
- In team homework assignments.
- To inspire assistant coaches.
- In conversation with players.
- In business presentations.
- For season-ending banquets or speeches.
If you know any more football quotes that you’d like to share, please submit them through our “Contact Us” page.
— Mike O’Halloran
Mike is a former contributing writer for USA Football, the youth arm of the NFL, and is editor of Sports Feel Good Stories.
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