Why Giants Legend Lawrence Taylor Almost Quit Football

From 1981-1993, when people spoke of the New York Giants, one of the first names that came to mind was Lawrence Taylor.

Known as "LT," the Hall of Fame linebacker was indeed a rare generational talent that has often been imitated but yet to be duplicated. Taylor alone forced opposing head coaches and offensive coordinators to get creative with ways to slow him down.

From those quests, concepts frequently found in today's game, such as the H-back, were born.

In an interview with Rich Kleiman for The Boardroom: Out of Office podcast, Taylor revealed that at one point, Taylor contemplated walking away from the game after he became disenchanted with the sport a few weeks into his time at the University of North Carolina.

Thankfully, Taylor's father helped him change his mind.

“My father told me something a long time ago when I started playing football,” Taylor said. “It (football) was really beating my ass the first three or four weeks. I wanted to come home, and I was telling my father I wanted to quit. He said, ‘You have to be better than the next man just to be equal.’ I understood that, and I started to kick some a**.”

Taylor, 61, also admitted that he went ballistic when he learned that head coach Bill Parcells promoted Bill Belichick to the defensive coordinator position.

“I come into the league, and I meet Bill Belichick, he is an assistant special teams coach,” Taylor said. “What the hell is that? That’s like a towel boy. Then the next year, he is the special teams coach, and then the third year, Parcells becomes the head coach, and he makes Belichick the defensive coordinator, and I went ape s***.”

Taylor confronted Parcells about the decision, and the head coach revealed that many of the Giants' defensive schemes being run at the time had been created by Belichick, which softened his stance about Belichick.

Belichick went on to mastermind some of the greatest Giants defensive game plans, perhaps none more impressive than the brilliance showing in their Super Bowl XXV victory over the Buffalo Bills in which the Giants shut down the Bills potent passing offense.

Taylor, 61, was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999 on his first year of eligibility.

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