Top 55 Herm Edwards Quotes

When you’re on TV, you’re still coaching, believe it or not. You’re just coaching America, you’re not coaching one team.

You play to win the game.

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.

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.

I was a bit of a rebel when I was young.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When you have kids, you never think of burying your own child.

No one player is bigger than the team.

It’s good to have somebody else say what you’re thinking.

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’m big on integrity.

Believe in what you do and keep working hard and you can’t take what people say personally, because if you do it’ll eat at you.

Nobody on this earth can intimidate me.

I like to have fun.

It has to be the right fit. Coaching is about fits.

When I got in this profession, as a young guy, as a college coach at San Jose State, I knew right then that I had a passion to do this, to touch people’s lives, to develop young men in the game of football.

I’m Catholic now, I’m Christian, watch out for them Devils.

When I wake up, I don’t worry about why the mountain is there. I just start climbing.

‘Jim Thorpe – All American’ influenced me as a young kid.

My father gave me discipline.

Fans have their own idea about who to hire; that’s what makes football great.

One of my daughters was born in Kansas City. I spent almost 10 years there.

I used to tell people I was 6-foot-4. And with that afro, I was.

You don’t want an emotional team; you want a passionate team.

When you’re an athlete, the one thing you’re concerned about is injury, because that’s the No. 1 thing that can take you out.

I don’t go crazy but I have those spurts.

When you talk about domestic violence, it’s not just athletes that are involved in it. Our society has really done a poor job of addressing it. And it needs to come to the forefront.

The support of Chiefs fans across the country has been tremendous. They are truly passionate about their football team.

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.

Remember, a receiver can motion wherever, run wherever he wants to on the field, you can’t get your hands on the guy and there is a lot of room. When you are a corner, you are playing to the boundary, which is your friend.

As you get older, the quality of life is more important.

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

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’ve worn a lot of hats in the NFL.

I think I bring a good perspective because I did a lot of things in the NFL – player, head coach, assistant and scout.

You don’t forget how to coach.

I won’t change my character for anybody.

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.

I don’t think anybody that coaches ever fully quits.

I kind of know who I am as a man. There’s a value system I believe in.

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 believe in giving people an opportunity to do their jobs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I don’t need validation from people at all.

You don’t quit in sports. You retire. You don’t get to quit. It’s not an option.

Coaches are well aware, especially at quarterback, that it’s not the system but the player who comes first.

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.

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?’

Coaching is always about changing. That’s the life of a football player and a coach.