ANDREW WHITWORTH

You see some of these guys that lead in sacks every year, but they only play on third down or only play in certain situations.

Mess up and draft somebody at my position, because you are going to sit around and watch him sit the bench. That's always been my mentality. I see it as a challenge.

I've got two contracts in my life. One, with my wife because we're married. And, two, I've got a contract to protect Andy Dalton. I'll do both of those to the best of my ability.

If you're a true warrior, competition doesn't scare you. It makes you better.

I love Cincinnati, and I want to be there.

To me, it's about always trying to make decisions that reflect my leadership and who I am.

At the end of the day, who you are as a man is more important than who you are as a football player.

Leadership is a position where you want to create the opportunity to inspire people to walk along beside you, not listen to what you say.

Being a mentor and a leader, I've always urged guys, if you're ever allowed to be a free agent, to take advantage of that opportunity.

I think the way to maximize not just your leadership but your ability to influence your team is whatever you can do that helps the team perform at a really high level.

There's a lot of veteran players that, honestly, being comfortable where they play is more important. And that's just not me.

The bottom line is the best way to lead is to play well.

I want the young guys to say, 'How old is this guy that's blocking me every play?'

I feel like what's made me the player I am is always being willing to take the challenge.

As an older lineman, if you start to sit around, you get stiff. You get tired. Things start to set in.

No matter what job you have, you're in control of your attitude. That, to me, is my biggest focus every day - being on the energy bus.

Most tall golfers don't have a lot of success. You have trouble getting steep on the ball too much. Stance, posture, all those things can be bad.

As I say, 'Every tackle's nightmare is third and long.'

It's cool when the O-line gets the chance to get some notoriety.

I don't ever think a day is a perfect day. There's always something.

I've always been known for speeding up the tempo. To me, that's just the way you play the game - aggressive. There's no time to rest. You rest on the sidelines.

I'm a technician. It's like that in football and the same way in golf. I want to try to find a way that I can swing the club properly. Over the years, it's getting better and better.

People fought hard for freedoms; they didn't fight hard for one mentality. If you really talk about what the country was founded on and what those people are protecting who went to war and fought these wars and give us our freedoms and are fighting for our freedoms, I think you have to really ask yourself what is involved in freedom.

When you get into these NFL rushers - the power, the speed, the bull rush, and all those kind of things - it's just different than college football.

Leadership, to me, is about the ability to have people want to hear what you have to say. People want to be around you, people want to believe in what you tell them, and they feel good when they walk away from you about who they are and what they're doing.