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So I've been fortunate to have a bunch of teammates - pretty much all the teammates I've had have been pretty good guys.
I think any time you can go out and put pads on and practice before the season, I think it's a good sign. It's a good sign.
I don't say I'm necessarily a professional football player. I'm a competitor. That's what was instilled in me as a young boy.
When you become a pa, you have different priorities now, and you're not living for yourself; you're living for someone else now.
You've got these young kids out here that have to learn, but you learn from the guys above you. I learned from the Kevin Faulks.
The Patriots do a great job of establishing a common rhetoric of working hard and working for the men that stand next to you on the field.
We ignore noise, and we really just to try hunker down on preparation, our practice, and going out and trying to play our best games on Sundays.
To be really honest, I do not mind whether it is offense or defense. I just like being in on plays and doing what needs to be done to help us win.
People think it's just a 16-week season, but this is a 52-week kind of job. You're always thinking about how to improve and what to get for the next year.
Devin McCourty - he's got his own style: he always wears a nice fitted suit and mixes up his colors. He's got some game when it comes to the fashion world.
Go out and do your drills that you do to try to get better. You lift your weights, try to take things from the classroom to grass, try to get better every day.
I wear a lot of sweatshirts and joggers in the winter and gym shorts and tees in the summer. I really appreciate something that is easy to slip on and chill out in.
I definitely follow fashion and trends and will sporadically add them to my wardrobe in an organic way. But my style, at its core, is a minimal, clean, and timeless look.
When I was growing up, I was a huge San Francisco 49ers fan. The New England Patriots have a similar mold and plan to win a lot of games - reminiscent to that Bill Walsh era.
I mean, I think everyone at this level has a chip on their shoulder. Everyone's got a story. Everyone has had to go through some adversity to get to where they are at so, I guess, we all do.
I try to live by the 80/20 rule - 80% clean, 20% cheat. During the week and while I train, I eat as clean as possible. But I always like myself a good cheat day, which includes a juicy burger.
Anytime you get to go out and see the fellas and play with them and talk with them and be in the huddle and look at guys and participate in drills - I mean, that's what you play the game for, ultimately.
My dad was just a little trailer trash white dude that worked his tail off, didn't have a dad. He started working at 14, didn't get to play sports. He dedicated his life to his kids to let us live our dreams.
It's always nice to be on the practice field because, ultimately, practice is the most important thing other than the game because that's where you gain your confidence; that's where you get your fundamentals.
I would say the greatest challenge, for me, had been my rookie year and learning my spot. It is an emotional battle, as you have good days and bad days. Being young and thrown into this big business is challenging.
You can never go wrong with a pair of jeans, a cool tailored shirt, and a nice jacket. You can dress it up with a more stylish jacket or a bracelet, watch, or necklace. It's simple, but it's cool. That's my opinion.
Everyone goes down a road that they're not supposed to go down. You can do two things from it. You can keep going down that road and go to a dark place. Or you can turn and go up the hill and go to the top - try to go to the top.
When you've got a leader that wants to go out and practice at the ultimate, highest level, when something that you should do doesn't go right, there's going to be a little fire under that, and that's what you need from your leader.
It's been a privilege to get to watch one of sports greatest athletes prepare and get to play with him; honestly... it's a dream. I remember being in eighth grade saying, 'I'm Tom Brady,' on the asphalt at recess, you know, playing football.
When Dad stopped playing in a rock band and was done chasing that dream, he devoted himself to his family. I would love to do the same thing - just without driving a 1991 Suburban and wearing sweatpants, a fanny pack, and six-year-old Pumas.
It's not fun to watch your team go out, and guys that you've worked so hard with, and the countless hours you've put in on your own time to go and showcase all your hard work, and then have it taken from you and then see your boys playing without you.
There's no one more valuable for me to learn from than Tom and his wife, Gisele Bundchen, in a lot of ways. Every time I'm around them, I learn. The way they are with their kids, the way they make time to spend with each other, they are just good people.
The No. 1 rule you're taught as a receiver: You've just got to watch the ball. You hear about the guy who was lucky. But the guy who was lucky got an opportunity, and he was prepared for it. Sometimes the ball falls your way, and, you know, we'll take it.
Tom Brady is Tom Brady. He was a sixth-round draft pick. A lot of people passed up on him. He's a Super Bowl Champion, Super Bowl MVP. He's been in a bunch of Super Bowls, and he could care less about all of that. He just cares about winning the next game.
Nowadays with the injury that I have, it's not easy, but the technology and procedures are so much more advanced than they have been in the last 20 years. They're getting unbelievable results and I'm anticipating I'll get those same results and come back stronger.
There are different types of cornerbacks: you've got your longer guys that will try to get physical with you and use their length, and you've got your quick guys that will try to use their quickness, and then you've got your 'tweener' guys that will try to use both.
It's one thing to be 100 percent and go out and play football feeling great. It's another thing when you're not feeling good. You're sick, or you got a nagging injury, and you gotta go out in the cold and go across the middle where a guy's coming full speed at you trying to kill you.
I don't even enjoy football, at least professional football, anymore because I'm breaking the game down constantly. You're sitting there watching the plays, and you're talking mental reps on what would I have done here against this coverage or this leverage, this, that. It is what it is.
Mr. Kraft and his family, they gave me an opportunity to come out and play in the NFL. And just to see the kind of role model Mr. Kraft is in the community, he's always around; he's here every day - darn near - he's very involved, and he's just a good man. Nothing but respect, and it starts at the top.
When I'm tired, I like to go and do drills where you catch tennis balls off walls. Different colors use different hands, and you've got to react to those types of things at different angles. I do all these crazy reaction-time things or reaction skills with tennis balls every morning, or at least four times a week.
One of the reasons I wanted to write a memoir was because I'm tired of telling my story. [Laughs] So I can say, here, read it, this is everything that happened. There are a bunch of cool stories of the transition of me becoming a receiver from a quarterback in college to being a special teams guy, a role player, to working my way to the role I've earned now.
Writing the book was a pretty cool thing to go through, it really made me think of how crazy a journey it really was for this kid from Redwood City, Calif. When I was 12 years old, I was practicing my signature, but did I ever think I'd be a two-time Super Bowl champ, playing on arguably one of the best franchises of all time with the best quarterback of all time, for the best coach of all time?
Most people don't understand football is a 12-month job. In the off-season - you can attest this with the people from Joe's - anytime we did a shoot or anything, it had to be after 2:00. Because from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., it's football training - get your body worked on, things like that. Then you go into the organized team activities in the spring, you work with your teammates and that's where your bonding comes from. You mold your cohesiveness.