Ryan Tannehill Quotes

I just think more precaution should be taken when I'm inside the pocket. Look at all the replays - I'm on the ground every time. It's unfortunate for myself, it's unfortunate for my team and I'd be lying if I sat here and said I wasn't frustrated right now.

It is relatively easy... to determine whether or not a blow to a quarterback was deemed excessive or incidental. So I'm discouraged that there have been a number of games that are influenced - not that the outcomes are in question - but a number of games influenced based on the protection of the quarterback.

When you go out on a football field, you are responsible for taking care of yourself. The more rules you get, the less players truly take care of themselves.

Back in the '80s and '90s, you could hit the quarterback low, you could hit the quarterback high. You could hit him pretty much late.

Quarterbacks are untouchable nowadays. If you hit a quarterback too hard, or if you fall on him with too much weight - which is a judgment thing from a professional standpoint - you're going to get flagged.

It's not an exercise on how to avoid getting hit. I think there are certain safety measures that take care of the mental part of it, with players not looking to hit somebody in the head. They've done that. But let's not take the entertainment value out of football.

Whenever you're falling or getting tackled, try to protect yourself. But that's part of the game; that's part of football.

I don't like the rules about you can't hit the quarterback.

We penalize and suspend players for making contact with the head while checking, in an effort to reduce head injuries, yet we still allow fighting. We're stuck in the middle and need to decide what kind of sport do we want to be. Either anything goes and we accept the consequences, or take the next step and eliminate fighting.

Of course, in pro ball, they never hit the quarterback in practice.

We don't realize how much the NFL is quietly drifting towards flag football. During the '80s, part of the defense's goal was to put the fear of God into offensive players... that's fading away.

We need to let the referee's sole thing be to protect the quarterback and get those late hits out of there. They even have a stat on television that says 'knockdowns.' Knockdowns means that you knock him down after he throws the ball. The assumption is, if it's legal, we'll make excuses for them.

There's obviously a push to protect the quarterback, but you have to give the defensive players a chance. All of the quarterback has to do is pull the ball, and he's a runner. How's the defender going to know if the ball is pulled or not?

I couldn't identify just one, but there's numerous rule changes and points of emphasis that have reflected a change on the field almost immediately. It's hard to avoid the horse-collar tackle, for example, but the players understand why the rule is in there - because of the injury rate prior to us making that a personal foul.

There are a couple people who have complained on other teams about some of the things that Pittsburgh players have done. Some of that goes in the category of gamesmanship. Some of that goes to the fact that we need to be vigilant as a league to make sure that players aren't unnecessarily and inappropriately hurt.

As the equipment has gotten better - and it's gotten better in an attempt to try to protect the player more - then the equipment becomes used more as a weapon.

In this day and age, in modern goalkeeping, if you come out and you catch the ball and you get smacked, you're going to get the foul.

Ronnie Lott - he got a really good shot on me once and I learned that unless I wanted to shorten my career, I needed to steer clear of his path.

I think if you're raising your foot high whether it's an overhead kick or not, you're risking a red card.

Freedom of movement, which is a great rule, doesn't mean freedom to go to the rim for a layup or freedom to take any shot you want to take or me going in there and not playing through contact.

I've just got to be a little bit cautious with my technique and all that sort of stuff, going into tackles. But I'm not going to change the way that I go into it. I'm going to be aggressive.

No one's saying anything against healthy, fair hardness. That's a part of football. But referees must look more closely and make sure limits are not exceeded.

Hockey is a tough game. With all the talk and everything that's going on right now, it frightens me a little bit that we are giving our players an excuse not to hit. I just hope that we don't take that out of our game at the pro level.

There are many penalties which referees don't see. Sometimes they are right, and many other times, they are wrong. That is football.

Ask a receiver, can we take his gloves off because he's catching the ball too well? Nobody is going to be overly happy about that.