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.Collection: Teacher
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.Collection: Religion
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.Collection: Chance
I'm very observant. I see more than people think I'm seeing.
No one player is bigger than the team.
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.
You add a good receiver and that will take pressure off your quarterback.
As you get older, the quality of life is more important.
You play to win the game.
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.
I'm a neat freak.
I do the right thing on purpose. I don't do it by accident.
The job of the offense is not to score points. The job of the defense is not to stop the other team from scoring points.
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.
I think I bring a good perspective because I did a lot of things in the NFL - player, head coach, assistant and scout.
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.
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.
One of my daughters was born in Kansas City. I spent almost 10 years there.
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.
I grew up in the early '60s, and there was a lot of civil rights, a lot of unrest in our country.
I think Brian Hoyer is a good quarterback.
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.
I wanted to give back to football what it's given me. So, I decided, 'I'm going to be a coach.'
I've always said that your attitude is your best friend and your worst enemy.
You don't want an emotional team; you want a passionate team.
I kind of know who I am as a man. There's a value system I believe in.
I don't need validation from people at all.
I believe you bet on yourself and you commit to something and you give all your energy and effort to it, and that's what I've done my whole life.
When you're on TV, you're still coaching, believe it or not. You're just coaching America, you're not coaching one team.
I like to have fun.
I competed every day as a professional football player... You've got to like competing. That's how your team gets better, when you have competition every day.
Football ignites my soul.
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.
I'm Catholic now, I'm Christian, watch out for them Devils.
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.
You don't forget how to coach.
I don't go crazy but I have those spurts.
The support of Chiefs fans across the country has been tremendous. They are truly passionate about their football team.
You have an obligation as a player - as an athlete at any level - and it doesn't matter what sport it is. When you sign on, you sign on. You prepare that week to go win. I don't care about your schedule, or how many people got hurt - it doesn't matter. You owe it to the people in the building and guys in the huddle to prepare yourself to win.
You don't quit in sports. You retire. You don't get to quit. It's not an option.
It has to be the right fit. Coaching is about fits.
At heart, I'm still a coach. I'm always a coach.
When you become an athlete, you live in this bubble. You're in the world, but you're not in the world.
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.
It's good to have somebody else say what you're thinking.
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.
The players think it's all about them! It's not about them - it's about the game of football, man!
I don't think anybody that coaches ever fully quits.
I am looking forward to sharing the knowledge I have accumulated as a player, coach and member of the working media with the students at the Cronkite School.