I don't feel any different than Tom Brady's daddy just because I played. I don't think I'm any different from any other father who's got a son out there playing.
— Archie Manning
I'm very proud of high school, college and pro football, the strides have been made to make it a safer game.
There's nothing worse than seeing someone hurt out on the football field.
We never knew we'd have kids playing pro football or going to Super Bowls. That wasn't ever a part of our plan in raising kids, so we really feel blessed.
I loved Bud Grant.
Good teams have more fun. Bad teams have more characters.
The Saints - it gave people joy.
Obviously, you have to have some physical ability to play quarterback in the NFL.
I have a lot of empathy for quarterbacks.
As a family, we didn't get into the celebrity thing. That's not what we wanted for the boys. We wanted them to play everything they could, be involved in as many school events as they could.
That's the one thing before parenthood that no one really impressed upon me, that all of my children would be so different.
New Orleans people love their weekends.
I'm not sure what the right age is to start playing football.
We went to school board meetings, we went to Little League games, and we did everything to be normal.
TPC Louisiana, where the Zurich Classic is held, is an outstanding course.
I've always felt my wife had class and a lot more culture than I do, and I've seen that rub off on Eli.
Success, you know, is a relative thing.
I'm glad I got to play 15 years. I'm not scarred by the fact I didn't do better, or win more. I don't even talk about it, other people do.
I've watched what coaches do for young people in our country.
Frankly I've been in these situations where the locker room wasn't good. That's really the worst of times.
I love New York.
I don't throw out advice unless I am asked.
The best we ever did was 8-8. But my career was not as dreadful as people make it out to be. You don't see any scars on Archie Manning.
Mardi Gras, the drinking, the partying - that scared me.
No quarterback ever won a championship that did it all by himself.
When I see siblings in some families not get along, I just struggle with that. My wife says I need to be more real about it, but I just can't believe it when it happens.
We wanted our children to have as normal a life as we could.
If you just make every effort to do the right thing, you'll come out ok. It comes down to priorities and making good decisions.
Growing up in a small town of two thousand people, there wasn't too many ways to get in trouble. But I found some. We got caught stealing green plums from this old lady's yard.
My advice for parents is to support your children, make sure they are having fun. Support them and be there for them. Give them encouragement and make it a life lesson that along the way they are learning to make good decisions and do the right thing.
I'm as proud as the next guy, but I've always been a little skeptical of the daddies who walk around talking about what great athletes their kids are.
Emeril Lagasse is one of my great friends.
My first toy was an adjustable wrench I called 'my wrencher.'
I've enjoyed so little success as a professional player.
I'm happy for my kids getting postseason opportunities, for both of them playing in the Super Bowl back to back. I never would have envisioned anything like that.
I've always said, other than my dad, coaches had the greatest impact on me.
The worst part about getting in a rut in football is the weeks are so long.
Indianapolis is a great Midwestern city. Great people. Warm, friendly people.
You get a new coach; you do things a little differently.
Peyton's pretty good at figuring stuff out.
The quarterbacks who are picked in the first round and are declared - and I don't like the word - busts, it's not that the scouts were wrong about their ability or their potential. But commitment is such a huge part of it.
Drew Bledsoe is a great talent. He had some fantastic years early in his career.
When I grew up, we played in vacant lots.
There are all sorts of challenging conversations as a parent and it's never easy. I think the main thing is trying to be fair, sometimes there has to be a little bit of discipline, maybe even punishment involved in trying to make your child understand, learn from bad experiences and make sure they don't happen again.
With Eli - and all of my sons - I wanted to impress that as they grow older, they are going to have important decisions to make and at decision time, you can't be 100% perfect, but try to evaluate things and do what's right.
When I showed interest in sports, my dad handled it right. I lost my dad when I was nineteen years old. Up until then, his policy on sports was that you can go out for any sport you want to - but don't even think about quitting. If you don't like it, you're going to stick it out.
The best advice I try to give a young quarterback is, you need to know what you're doing. You need to know what you're doing, because if you know where to go with the football, you can get rid of it and throw it and you won't get hit.
I didn't want to be one of these pushy daddies.
It's a hard time, winning the Super Bowl or losing the Super Bowl.
You throw 40 times a game when you're first starting out, it's a crash course.
