Aging & Wisdom Quote by Bob Lilly

Memory does a funny thing in sports: it turns a box score into a family story, a rival into a reference point. Bob Lilly is nominally talking about Johnny Unitas, but the line is really an x-ray of how athletes measure greatness across eras. He frames the Colts as an early benchmark - not just on the schedule, but in his own formation as a player. That detail matters. Lilly isn’t offering a hot take; he’s locating Unitas in the personal timeline of someone who knew what elite looked like up close.

The timing - “just passed away recently” - nudges the quote into eulogy without letting it get syrupy. Lilly’s praise is deliberately plain: “very impressed,” “one of the best.” Coming from a Hall of Fame defender, that understatement is the point. Football culture values toughness and restraint; reverence is expressed through controlled language, not poetic excess. The subtext is respect with credibility: I saw him in his prime, I competed in that world, and I’m not exaggerating.

There’s also a quiet admission about influence. Lilly describes himself as “very young,” positioning Unitas as an emblem of what the game looked like at its highest level before today’s passing explosions and media saturation. It’s cross-generational gatekeeping, but gentle: not “back when men were men,” more “here’s the standard we carried.” In a sport obsessed with legacy, Lilly is preserving one, and anchoring his own memories - and era - to it.