Playing Through Pain Quotes

What I think I've been able to do well over the years is play with pain, play with problems, play in all sorts of conditions.

As athletes, we're always trained to play through stuff. And I've played through all types of injuries - ankle sprains, shoulder, whatever - and with the brain it's just different.

I like to think of myself as somebody who heals fast and can play through pain, but I'm not going to rush it at the same time. A sprained ankle, those are things I can fight through.

The quarterback, you can play with a lot of big injuries. You get a little injury like an index finger or a thumb that most people can play with, sometimes you can't. I've stayed away from some of those.

Most of the players can get injured, small ones and big ones. But when you get the small ones, you have to fight against them and play, play, play.

Even when I'm in pain, I play.

There's a fine line between playing through things and sitting out. I was always on the side of, 'I'm going to play through it.' It's probably good at times, bad at times, but for an athlete to always try to be there and play through things, from a teammate's perspective, it speaks volumes. Now that I look back, mentally it makes you tougher.

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 think, a lot of guys, when they get, you know, those hits or those concussions, they think, 'OK, well, I'm just going to kind of play through it here for the short term, and it's going to get better.' I would venture to say probably 100 percent of the guys that played my sport in the NFL have been there.

Some guys milk injuries and miss a couple games at the beginning. Other guys, they tough it out for the betterment of the team.

They said if I could deal with the pain, I should play. So, I did, and for some reason, I started hitting. It was a weird thing. I don't know if it was because I couldn't do too much, and I was just trying to stay up through the middle and not hurt myself.

I've played in Boston and New York, and it doesn't matter if you're sick, aching - once you step on that field, you're a completely different animal.

Old-school guys, they don't need to see the doctor, the massage therapist. We'd come in when we was 21; we'd go right to the court and start shooting.