Luke Kuechly

“Leading by example is something I've always tried to pride myself on.”

“For me, you play the game to win, and it's only as simple as that.”

“My thing is, if you're going to put stuff in your body, it's going to be beneficial. Clean carbs, complex carbs, good proteins, a balanced diet. It's difficult to do it on a consistent basis, but it's pretty straightforward: fish, chicken, lean red meat, vegetables, fruits, complex carbs. The hardest part is putting on the work.”

“Knowing the team is in your corner is comforting.”

“I try to stay clean on the field and off the field.”

“I think you win one game in the playoffs and then you don't go any further than that, it's obviously good but it's not like something that you're like, 'Yeah!'”

“Hopefully I can find a way to stay involved in football somehow.”

“The more you're yourself, the better you can play in the game.”

“I worked in the warehouse, and I would pick up orders. I would go to the computer screen, print off the order from a customer and then it would have where all the stuff was located in the warehouse. I'd go get a big gray cart, and you had to fill up these bins with all the parts. And it wasn't air-conditioned in there.”

“I love pizza as one of my favorite foods. Pizza and cheeseburgers.”

“There are a lot of guys that are really good at running the ball.”

“I play the game and I understand what's going to happen; you get banged up. But you signed up for it.”

“As the game progresses and people throw the ball more often, the tight ends have become more and more difficult to guard.”

“When you're loose you play better.”

“Everything with the draft process, from the combine to visits to pro days, that's great but it's not football.”

“With all these teams spreading it out and throwing the ball, that's more my style of play.”

“I think when you're a kid you don't think about money or dollar signs. You think about when you wake up on Sunday mornings, it's NFL.”

“It's the right thing to do to help out and give your time, I think that's something that everybody's got the same amount of time and it's, how do you use that time.”

“Nutrition and fluids play a big part in what you're doing. You can work as hard as you want inside a facility, and your program can be great, but if you don't balance it with a quality nutrient plan, you're going to have some issues.”

“You can't ask somebody to talk about themselves. You've got to ask other people. It's like you can't nickname yourself.”