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I play a lot of basketball and racquetball, as they're both great for your feet and hand eye coordination. Other drills can help as well, such as simply catching a football in distant positions from different heights and velocities.
I miss football, but I'm not done. I'm not retired or anything, I just know my worth. Once it's clear that the NFL isn't considering your worth, then you get a better picture of what's really important and what you should put your energy and time into.
We used a racquetball and threw it off the wall as hard as we could, then tracked it down with our eyes and feet. Nike has new balls that bounce all sorts of different directions and really help you learn to track the ball and move your feet to react quickly.
You need to make sure you're going exactly where your guy goes in press coverage. In zone, you can read the quarterback and his eyes a bit to determine where he's going. You don't get the opportunity in press coverage to read the quarterback, so it's all on you.
You're out there on an island. It's just you and the best receiver, man-to-man, in one-on-one coverage a lot of the time. And you don't really get any help. If you get beat, everyone can see. If you get scored on, everyone knows. That's the difficulty of playing corner.
You need to understand the receiver and the offense you're facing that week. Know his tendencies and what routes he runs out of what formations. This will help you understand the concepts of what the receiver is going to give you on a given play, and make you that much better defending him.
Coming in as an undrafted rookie, I wanted to make sure I competed every day against those talented receivers. Brandon Lloyd, he was a great guy to go against because I did a lot of scout team. Going against him every day along with all those other receivers really helped me polish my game.
My mom, she thought I was the best. My sisters, maybe, but maybe that's not objective or anything. But if you believe in yourself, your family believes in you, you put in the work, do it right, you only need one other person to believe in you. That doesn't seem like a lot, but sometimes it is.
Until White America can look through the eyes of a Black man, nothing will change. Even we as Black people sometimes don't want to face what's going on within our communities because some of us crossed over into a different tax bracket, but these issues affect the communities that raised us, so it affects us all.
I'm just going to be honest with you. It's hard to go out there and fight for 60 minutes when you're fighting throughout the week to make it through one practice. I'm not the only one. I'm just the only one that's man enough to stand up here and talk to y'all. It's obviously, in my opinion, an issue in our starts.
You need to just understand where the ball is and how to use your body. Timing your jump the right way is crucial. Learn how to use your body to shield the receiver and box him out, again, much like a rebound. Trying to beat a receiver to a ball can be a lot like you're posting him up. Rebounding is great practice because you can employ those skills - body position, leverage, timing - a lot more than you might in a football game or practice if the quarterback doesn't look your way.
The underdog is a person that's at-risk, a person that has a lot of big trials you have to overcome. I mean that was my life. Me - coming from a single parent home. I didn't have offers coming out of high school. So I had to really have faith and lean on Jesus for everything because nothing was given to me. I had to really work for everything. I'm definitely an underdog. I think Jesus made me be in that situation to be able to relate to more people. That's why give back to the at-risk kids.
The two biggest things to understand when you're tracking the ball as a defensive back is your position on the field and understanding that once the ball is in the air you become the receiver. Too many young defensive backs worry about the receiver catching it or what the receiver is doing instead of focusing on what they should be doing. Just go out and make the play yourself, don't worry about him. Know where the ball is and attack it. Put yourself in position to bat it or catch it and make the play.
Especially in this business of football you got to get on your knees multiple times a day, just thanking God. I pray while I'm on the field because He has to be with me. One injury away from being done from playing football for the rest of my life or just that fast it can happen. So I just always got to pray for that covering. Make sure He's with me out there making plays with me. God wants to be involved in everything that you do. And I just try to involve Him. And that's what God said to do, to help build up His kingdom.
Me and my wife have been on the same kind of routine since we got married, man. Just praying together in the morning, praying at night together. And I think having her, that support right there! I always try to make sure my kids grow up in the right home, I set the right example for them. Because I didn't always have my father there for me and my sister didn't have that either. So I just want to make sure they grow up different. They grow up seeing how marriage is supposed to be and I think that's what really gives me motivation.