Lawrence Taylor reveals why he almost quit football in high school — and what stopped him

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.