Top 70 Troy Aikman Quotes

If you do anything with the Cowboys, there’s an interest in it. And there are people who constantly want to write books about our teams in the ’90s. They want to interview me. I say, ‘Look, I’ve done it a million times. I’m just not interested. What’s left to tell?’

Most of the pressure, if not all, is self-imposed.

I handled myself as a quarterback in the manner I thought necessary.

I have an idea of marriage as being a sharing type of deal.

I think when the cameras are on him is when Coach Switzer is at his best.

Whenever anybody has talked about concussions, they immediately talk about me and Steve Young.

The quarterback I enjoy watching the most is Dan Marino.

It’s not always statistics that determine the best player, especially the quarterback.

My father was not a man you wanted to mess with.

They portray me as a hick just because I enjoy some of the things people in Oklahoma like. I think people expect me to come out wearing my boots and spurs.

I have been playing this game since I was 7 years old, and to all of a sudden recognize that you’re not going to do it anymore is hard.

You get down on yourself. You get disappointed in yourself. I expect more out of myself. As far as losing confidence as far as what I can do, that won’t ever happen.

I don’t think Dallas has ever really had a great home field advantage.

Playing a rookie at quarterback tells the other players that you’re giving up the season.

There are not many Chicagos, where people go out and support their sports teams, whether they are struggling or not.

As a quarterback, I appreciated the passer rating whether you threw the ball a majority of the time or if you didn’t throw it as much. You were judged on a level playing field, and I thought teams should be ranked similarly.

I don’t understand why guys want to be controversial and in the press all the time. It’s just not my nature.

I have a real hard time classifying anything as my biggest moment, my favorite color or whatever.

I believe success is achieved by acquiring and developing talented, respected, and credible individuals, none of which applies to Skip Bayless.

What I am is a direct result of how I was raised.

I’ve never gotten into anything that I didn’t feel I’d be successful doing.

I sometimes get frustrated with how important Dallas Cowboys’ football is to people. It’s extremely important to me, too, but football is what I do.

The one thing disappointing I had coming out of college was not playing in the Rose Bowl.

I wish there was a switch that I could flip, where no one knows me. And then, when I’m ready to make a splash, I’d flip the switch and say, ‘Hey, I’m ready now.’ Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.

I’m not a guy who needs the spotlight. It’s not something I have to have. I’m content to sit at home.

I dwell in the past.

Some coaches don’t want their players to be the stars. They want their systems to be the stars.

As a former player, I have a real appreciation for a guy like Aaron Rodgers and how much time he puts into his craft and how good he is doing it.

I do not have a son; if I had a son, I wouldn’t necessarily discourage him from playing football, but I don’t know that I would encourage him to play, either.

I was brought up not to brag. I’ve always disliked people who do.

Years ago, the NFL influenced what happened in college. It’s the other way around now.

I consider myself to be one of the really, really fortunate ones to have gotten out of the game as healthy as I did.

You can’t just can’t simply replace head coaches and say, ‘Now it’s going to be better.’

Most people assume you change with success.

As long as we’re wearing helmets and shoulder pads – there’s collisions between these big, physical, fast guys – head injuries are going to be a part of it.

The one thing about being an athlete, say you are struggling with throwing a comeback route, well, then you go out and practice it. You throw it 100 times a day, and you get better at it, and you see those improvements pretty rapidly.

A lot of people believe that I retired from the game of football because of concussions – that is not accurate. I really retired primarily because of a degenerative back condition that I had.

The only way you’re gonna eliminate helmet-to-helmet contact is to take the helmets off. Go back to leather helmets. I mean, I think a defensive player would be much less inclined to lead with his head if he had no protection.

It’s one thing if you’re a part of teams that won five championships. But it’s an extremely different argument if you’re a big reason for those championships.

Broadcasting keeps you relevant.

As a player, you can’t express ideas and opinions as easily as when you’re doing a ballgame.

I’ve always known football.

I always play every game in my mind before it begins. A lot of times in a game, a play will happen, and it will feel like deja vu, like I’ve seen the play happen before in my mind.

When you stand and talk about player safety, and then, at the same time, you want to extend the season two more games, there’s a contradiction in there.

I had two concussions that were of major concern, what I would term very significant. As far as head injury goes, I would say all of the others were pretty minor and inconsequential.

Winning is hard. Repeating is harder.

Look, the only way for me to enjoy the game is to be consumed by it, to compete at a level where I know, at the end of that game, that my teammates and I did our absolute best.

I think it’s nice to win awards, but my goal is not to win the Heisman: it’s to get to the Rose Bowl.

My 21st birthday was probably the worst day of my life.

To say, ‘I don’t worry about perception,’ you better worry about perception because it’s a big part of making it through some very difficult times.

I think having won a Super Bowl puts you on a different level. I know, for me, it’s extremely important to win this ballgame.

If you’re healthy and you’re told that you’re capable of playing and the medical staff signs off on it, to me, you play because that’s what you are paid to do.

As long as we’re having contact and as long as there are collisions, there’s going to be head injuries. What the long-term consequences are of that, we’re beginning to learn, and that definitely will have an impact on the game as we know it.

I always have been comfortable with my opinions and how I feel about the play on the field, and how it should be done and how teams should go about playing the game.

I was 0-11 as a starter, and there were times when I walked off the field wondering if I’d ever win a game in the NFL.

The year we went to our first Super Bowl in 1992, we were the youngest team in football. We played in the Super Bowl against a team that had a wealth of playoff experience and Super Bowl experience, and we dominated that football game.

As a kid, I used to practice my signature, working on the way I wanted to sign my autograph.

I would bet you that even though people think I absorbed an inordinate number of head injuries, I’d say relative to the number of guys who have played this game, I would say that my head injuries were relatively small.

I don’t try to please anybody. I try to win.

I don’t think I can fully explain what happens when you take on the role of quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Sometimes, I can’t even explain it to myself.

It’s not important to me that everyone knows everything about me or that I reveal all that I am or have.

I don’t know if I want to be 65 or 67, still broadcasting games. But, why not? What else are you going to do?

I didn’t know any hockey fans in Dallas.

I’m not here to propel myself into the limelight. I’m here to win a football game. If I am propelled into the limelight, I want it to be because of what I do on the football field, not because of some grand marketing strategy.

I believe – and this is my opinion – that at some point, football is not going to be the No. 1 sport. You talk about the ebbs and flows of what’s popular and what’s not. At some point, the TV ratings are not going to be there.

Working with someone who’s got your best interest at heart can make all the difference.

At one time, watching football was an event. Monday Night Football was a big event.

I think I’m a harder critic on myself than anybody is. I think I judge myself harder than any of the coaches do.

If head coaches weren’t important to the success of a team, then owners wouldn’t fire them all the time.

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.