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There are definitely times when taking a sack is a better play than doing something else and trying to make a play when something is not there.
I feel very blessed and lucky to have the opportunity to get out there and play. That's all you can ask for as a young guy trying to make it in this league.
I've played in a lot of different roles through the course of my career and I've been a starter for a lot of those years and the mentality can never change.
It's just part of the NFL. There's going to be moving parts constantly. There's going to be roster changes. There's going to be coaches going somewhere else.
For the most part, from the player standpoint, the coaches do the coaching and you try to come in and execute the game plan or the scheme they put in front of you.
One of our big duties as a player is not to dwell on the past and stay in the now because that's the only way you're going to continue to move forward and be successful.
I was in Minnesota in 2014 when Adrian Peterson was suspended. In that situation, we were about to play the Patriots when his suspension came out the Friday before the game.
There are times when the criticism is something you deserve as a quarterback, and there are times when the people doing the criticizing don't know what they're talking about.
I've been on a number of NFL teams, and a lot of them address situational football. But I've never been around a team that does it as meticulously as the New England Patriots.
You can work on routes all day in practice but in the game what it comes down to is if somebody is open or not. You kind of go through your progressions and go through it that way.
I think that's the genius part of what the Patriots do: They go above and beyond in identifying the issue and doing whatever they can to make sure it doesn't wreck the offensive plan.
You have to go through your reads and you have to make smart decisions because if you start forcing it in to double coverage you will get into bad habits and that is when bad plays happen.
I think as the quarterback of any NFL team, you put a tremendous amount of pressure on yourself to win ball games because that's what you're here to do and ultimately, that's what you want to do.
So for me, it's just continue to go out and work hard and do what I've been coached and let the other guys take advantage of what they do successfully and then just let the chips fall where they may.
I think that for a lot of young quarterbacks, sometimes it's difficult to get thrown into the fire quickly because from my experience, either you learn how to be a professional from the veteran players.
One word in one system might mean something else. You have to get a feel for it and study hard and then also when you get into these game-plan weeks, just bear down on what we're doing on a week-to-week basis.
I think I constantly refer back to some of the things that I learned in New England and throughout my career. It was a great stepping stone, and it also gave me time to mature as a player and as a quarterback.
The thing about the 2008 season which sticks out for so many people was we were coming off the 18-1 year where we went to the Super Bowl and lost in dramatic fashion with the catch and everything else that happened.
In 2005, our starting center, Dan Koppen, went down with a season-ending injury. Russ Hochstein was always our interior 'swing guy' - he played guard and center - and I remember Russ stepping in and playing beautifully.
The Thursday night game is by far the most difficult game to prepare for. You can't get into as much depth as you normally would in your game plan because you just don't have the time. You've got to jump right into the next opponent.
You just have to always go out and continue to work hard, watch the film, see what you did wrong from an offensive unit and individually. Then, you just have to go out and do better the next time out. That is what sports is all about.
The first thing that came to mind when I met Tom Brady was intimidation. I'm showing up in 2005 with a guy who just came off his third Super Bowl win. So, it's a little intimidating walking in the room with Tom Brady for the first time.
You've probably heard from 100 different people that the Patriots are a game plan offense. Here's what that means: We're going to watch the defense specifically to identify their tendencies, what they do situationally and what their philosophy is.
We knew what was going on with Spygate. We were in football mode, and it didn't impact our day-to-day. There's so much noise on the outside - 'You're cheaters, you're this, you're that' - but the easiest way to settle that is to go 18-0 and go to the Super Bowl.
Pro Day was very important for me because that was really the only time that I had to prove that I could play at an NFL level and that was really through the physical drills they put me through which was running and throwing the ball. It turned out pretty well for me.
It always comes down to being accountable to your teammates and so many times you get caught up in everything else going on. And I remember as a young guy, you always worry about, 'Well, who's getting the reps,' and this, that and the other, and it takes you and distracts you away from just doing your job.
I've always believed in myself and I've surrounded myself with positive-thinking people. That's why a lot of times I don't watch the sports shows or listen to the radio because of that simple fact, that there's too many critics out there and if you listen to everybody's opinion, I think it works against you.
From one week to the next, everything changes from who you're playing to the defense's scheme. You just try to build on the things that you did well and correct the things that you did poorly in the game; then, move forward from there and hopefully continue to get better and better and better as you move forward.
In the preseason, you usually only get a small window of opportunity, but when you get out there for four quarters and you're able to put it together, then you're able to go out there game after game and continue to get better, it was great, especially when I was able to prove a lot of my critics and naysayers wrong.