Defensive Line Quotes

Defensive end is home for me.

I haven't seen a new football play since I was in high school. You have just so many holes in a line and you have eleven men playing, and there's only so many ways you can go through those holes, and those ways have been used for forty, fifty years.

Even though you wouldn't want to line a D-lineman and running back up across from each other to block, when you get help initially from the guard, and then the defensive tackle gets picked up by the running back, it's not as bad as a lot of people would think versus if you're just putting that matchup on paper.

I'm a four-down guy. I can rush the passer and stop the run. I know I can be a difference-maker.

He could rush the passer, he could bull you, he could beat you speed inside and quickness. Those are long days when you had Michael Strahan lining up right over your head for 60 minutes, because most defensive ends are good at one or the other. Michael was really good at both.

I recruit defensive players first. That's where most games are won. Then you've got to get the offensive linemen.

I like to play attacking football, but I think the big difference is that we expect a lot more from our strikers, to do more pressing and to keep compact. We like to play a high line defensively and press the ball.

Not only the attackers, but the defenders - it's on the attackers to prepare themselves to break through the strong defense.

You can't put a running back in there and have him not know who to pick up. You can't get your quarterback hit.

In playoff football, you've got to be physical. You've got to run the ball.

I love getting after that quarterback! That's my deal: sacking the quarterback.

When you put pressure on the quarterback, everything looks a lot better.

When we had a great defense at Tampa Bay, we always measured our defenses against the best quarterbacks.

I was at 260 at Tennessee because I was playing three-technique.

Charles Haley changed the way the Cowboys played football in the 90s. And the reason why I say that is because he was such a dominant force coming off the edge, where it took two and three to block him.

I really had to create my own style, because it's kind of hard being a 6-1 defensive end. I'm really like 6-4 - really.

Football is and always will be a game of blocking and hitting

Football is blocking and tackling. Everything else is mythology.

Most people would say safety was my best position. To me, the biggest challenge and most gratifying thing I got out of playing football was playing corner, because it was a bigger challenge than playing safety. Playing corner provided me my biggest thrills and my biggest headaches.

Defense all starts with the ball and the rim-protector is the last resort, the last line of defense. I take pride in that.

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

We always think we can get to the quarterback, put pressure on him.

The football playoffs feature one-off affairs, without bad feelings building from weekend to weekend. In addition, football uses platoons for offense and defense and kicking, so only the interior linemen have a chance to really get up close and personal with one another.

The Italians are very strong defensively. They showed in Euro 2000 how good defensively they are.

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line. In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! I hope I'll be safe at home!