Giants — and NFL — history nearly looked very different.
Lawrence Taylor, considered by many the best defensive player ever, revealed that he wanted to quit football during high school, but that his dad wouldn’t let him.
“I thought it was too much,” Taylor said on Outkick’s “Maintaining with Tyrus” show. When I went out for football in my junior year, I wanted to quit. And my dad looked at me, ‘You’re not going to quit.
“And then once I started to get it a little bit, he told me, ‘Hey, you got to be better than the next man just to be equals.’ So, listen, I’m going after who’s ever in front of me, that’s who I have to deal with. And I think a lot of coaches, or my coaches anyway, allowed me to play the game the way I saw it.”
Taylor, of course, did not quit and went on to torment opposing offensive lines and quarterbacks.
Across 13 years in the NFL, all with the Giants, Taylor was named a First Team All-Pro eight times.
He also won MVP in 1986 — no defensive player has won the award since.
The Giants won two Super Bowls with Lawrence starring on defense — and Bill Belichick masterminding the unit as defensive coordinator.
The legendary coach has incredibly high regard for Lawrence.
“Greatest defensive player in NFL history,” Belichick said during a joint appearance along with Lawrence on the “Manningcast” of the Giants-Steelers game on Oct. 28, 2024. “When L.T. was on the field, the field tilted in our favor. It didn’t matter whether it was on defense or on special teams, because I used him on special teams, too. … This guy was a force. He revolutionized the game.”
Taylor, who has a checkered history off the field including drug use, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999.
