If you want to surf, move to Hawaii. If you like to shop, move to New York. If you like acting and Hollywood, move to California. But if you like college football, move to Texas.
I am more mature. I'm a better football player. I just feel like this is my time.
Playing in the National Football League, you're told, you know, where to be, when to be there, what to wear, how to be there. Being able to step away from that, I have an opportunity to look deeper into myself and look for what's real.
I've had a lot of clouds in my life since I got into pro football -- too many -- but now I feel like I can see really clearly for the first time. And I can see the Super Bowl from here.
Maybe I'm stupid or whatever, but to me if I got a concussion, if I could see straight and I could carry a football then I'm not telling anybody.
Nine in the box... that's a football term.
I stepped away to find out more about myself, which I was having difficulty doing as a football player. I got a chance to travel the world. I studied Eastern philosophy, and I've grown as a person so much.
I'm closer to being happy. I'm doing things that make me happy. In football I loved to practice and I loved to play, but I hated to be in meetings, hated to talk to the media, hated to have cameras in my face, hated to sign autographs. I hated to do all those things.
I led the NFL in attempts the past two years and they really didn’t go out and get a quarterback to help me so I knew it’s going to be all on me again. I could see my mortality as a football player, that I’m not going to be able to do this much longer. It just became obvious to me that playing football for me is not going to be fun, not something I’m going to enjoy and it’s time for me to do something different.
I am an honest, God-fearing man who is intensely dedicated to being the best person I can be on and off the football field.
If you identify yourself as a great football player, anytime anyone challenges that, you're going to have some kind of problem.
The people that I see on the street, they treat me more as a human being and not just an icon or a football player.
The NFL has been an amazing page in this chapter of my life. I pray that all successive adventures offer me the same potential for growth, success and most importantly fun.
I've let a lot of things go, and obviously football is one of them. I think the hardest thing to let go is your self-image. That's what I'm working on now.
I think if I were a college professor, no one would say I was uncomfortable about being shy because that might be expected. But I think because of people's stereotypes, they think of a football player as someone who is very outgoing and I'm not.
I really do love football.
Football is my job, not my life, but it's a job I'm going to give my all for as long as I'm in it.
Well, I don't think I've necessarily ever been a passionate football player or a passionate person.
