I've never been a fan of individual awards because football is such a team sport. There's so many things that goes into making plays. It's about teammates trusting one another and working together.
If you don't eat right as an athlete, you'll get tired and won't be as sharp. It's simple to drink sodas and sports drinks, but water is the most essential drink to put in your body.
America needs football. It's a real blue-collar sport; it's played with a blue-collar mentality, a mentality that's the backbone of this country.
I don't look at football as a violent, barbaric sport. It's a very spiritual sport, especially for someone facing the challenges during a game: the fear of failure, the fear of getting too big an ego, of making a mistake and everybody criticizing you.
There are very few sports where you can find that tranquility. Some people find that in golf, but when you're in the water it's such a difference from the golf course or the basketball court. That's what makes surfing unique over any other sport.
I really enjoy surfing a lot. It's an awesome sport. With surfing there are no mind games versus Peyton Manning, or versus anyone else. It's not me trying to throw a certain shot put further - or to put a ball in a hoop, it's just me against mother nature.
Our sport is not made for anybody to be able to play it, especially at the NFL level, so there's obviously some risk that we all take knowingly.
Playing professional sports, it's important to eat healthy and take care of your body. In the offseason, rest is really important to me.
I've been surfing for a couple years, in the offseason in California and in Hawaii. I'm not very good, but it's just something that to be out there in the water, no cell phone, no music... very few sports are as pure as that.
I think it's important to cross train. Surfing is a good cross training sport for your shoulders. I don't think I know of any other football player who does it, who can go and paddle out past the sets.
