Marv Levy Quotes

We need a system where all of our teams have the opportunity to compete and to make a few dollars. That's not a bad desire for collective bargaining for a sports league, and it's great for our fans.

Our economics are not baseball's economics. Our game is not baseball's game. Our owners are not baseball's owners, with one or two exceptions. Our union is not baseball's union. What we do has to be crafted and suited to address hockey, to address the NHL, to address our 30 teams and our 700-plus players.

Players suffer coaching changes all the time; it's life in the NFL.

A takeover or a player doing something wrong can take the focus away from what the most important thing is, which is to play football.

I went away with Scotland because I was trying to get some game-time somewhere but it just wasn't working out with Scotland, the results weren't happening.

What I love about our league is that players have an opportunity in their career to be a free agent and decide where they want to invest their time and their talent, in whatever team and whatever system. They deserve that right. They've earned that right.

Every team is beatable, you never know. The right moment, the right time, every team is beatable.

I could barely speak after I was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers. I was going to play for the defending Super Bowl champions.... I immediately thought of all the great players on the team. I was in awe, as I had watched these soon-to-be legends play on television. They epitomized for me what football was all about: the love of the game, the professional approach, and the desire to win.

Football without fans is nothing.

I wouldn’t have taken him. Not because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it. It’s not going to be totally smooth things will happen.

I learned it doesn't matter how you win. You play to your team's strength.

Football isn't necessarily won by the best players. It's won by the team with the best attitude.

I don't want to say [the teams] are mirror images of each other, ... but there's a lot of similarities on both sides of the ball.

Everybody in New York thinks the Knicks are Playboy bunnies, and I have been telling them for years the Knicks are a rabbit. They're closer to a Playboy bunny this year but for the last few years these guys are like, 'We have a really good team!' And I say, 'You really think that?' And I say, 'No, they don't.' But this is the best team they've had in a while.

It's hard to get up for a good high-school team like the Chicago Bulls.

Austin, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio, are the two toughest communities in which you have to put together a winning football team. They are both big metropolitan areas without professional football and major league baseball to sidetrack them.

A football team is like a society, straight up. There are rapists, but there are creatures and there are film guys.

When I first signed with the Yankees, the regulars wouldn't talk to you until you were with the team three or four years. Nowadays the rookies get $100,000 to sign and they don't talk to the regulars.

Alex Smith, what he’s done over the last two years for this football team, this is a mistake in not starting him. He needs to be the guy and it’s going to be tough if (Colin) Kaepernick doesn’t play well today and now you’re coming back saying, ‘Alex, we’re going to put you back in there.’

It's really hard. And it's harder today because of the salary cap. It starts in September at training camp - getting every guy on the same page, being as mentally and physically as focused as you can be. Then in April and May, you basically spend eight weeks practising, watching video and playing games. That's your life.

Every day in practice I have to lead by example. But at the same time, when people aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing, you're responsible as a player. You can't rely on the coaches to say everything. The players have to be responsible and take ownership of the team. Every day in practice there are situations where you need to say something and get a message across, but do it in the right way.

This may sound arrogant, but I believe that if we'd done teamship better, we'd still be there. Where we fell down was the inability to hold together. We should have learnt from the great football teams. The players may not like each other. They have egos, they have their own ambitions, they have different personalities, but they are still bloody good teams.

Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization.