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The captain thing was really an honor, and it was really flattering for me. It was really something that I didn't expect, and I would say that was the highlight of my career so far, being elected captain by my peers.
Wherever I go - like, I go to elementary schools, I go to middle schools - wherever it is, if it's in Florida, if it's up in New England, I just feel like wherever I am, the kids always go crazy whenever they see me.
Wherever we roll, it didn't really matter, chicks would come to me no matter what. Even before anything. But a lot of the time when it doesn't happen, you have more fun anyway, because you can hang out with your boys.
It sounds kind of cliche when teams say, 'Us against the world,' but that's the mentality you have to have. There are so many opinions out there that come from media, that come from your family or come from people on TV.
I've heard my father say that the man is to be the priest, the provider, and the protector of his family. He's the priest because he is the spiritual leader, monitoring and growing the spiritual temperature of his family.
No matter what the circumstances are, I've never seen Tom Brady come out and not give it all in practice. There's never any change in him. Whenever he's out on the field, he's giving it all, and he's just such a competitor.
Sometimes, we feel like we don't want to offend people, but there are times that we need to express ourselves without fear that somebody is going to shut us down simply because we have differing opinions. That's how we grow.
I'M HOPELESS, because I've lived long enough to expect things like this to continue to happen. I'm not surprised and at some point my little children are going to inherit the weight of being a minority and all that it entails.
I'M CONFUSED, because I don't know why it's so hard to obey a policeman. You will not win!!! And I don't know why some policeman abuse their power. Power is a responsibility, not a weapon to brandish and lord over the populace.
Playing football and being a tight end scoring points, it's awesome to see so many members throughout the United States join to play fantasy football, to expand the sport, to make the game more interesting while you're watching.
If you go out once a week, they can blast on you that you're always out all the time, but I always put work first, and people sometimes don't see the side of going into the weight room, behind-the-scenes-type stuff with football.
Most of the guys in the NFL would sit here and tell you we don't condone the abuse of a child, any sort of abuse of a woman, breaking rules, failing drug tests, or doing any of those things. We hold ourselves to a very high standard.
Ninety years after slavery, blacks were still segregated from whites. They still had separate drinking fountains, separate restrooms, separate neighborhoods, and separate schools. They still were expected to sit at the back of the bus.
My pet peeves are people touching me a lot. Random dudes grabbing me and slapping me across the back. They're not doing it on purpose, but it's like they forget I'm a person. But you can't do anything about it. What are you going to do?
I'M FRUSTRATED, because pop culture, music and movies glorify these types of police citizen altercations and promote an invincible attitude that continues to get young men killed in real life, away from safety movie sets and music studios.
I'M FEARFUL because in the back of my mind I know that although I'm a law abiding citizen I could still be looked upon as a "threat" to those who don't know me. So I will continue to have to go the extra mile to earn the benefit of the doubt.
I'M SAD, because another young life was lost from his family, the racial divide has widened, a community is in shambles, accusations, insensitivity hurt and hatred are boiling over, and we may never know the truth about what happened that day.
My grandfather was born in 1920. His grandfather was born in 1860, at the beginning of the Civil War, into an America where slavery had yet to be abolished. And so, as I have sometimes thought about it, I dodged slavery by just five generations.
One of the biggest things we have to be able to do is to handle conflict and handle it correctly. We're able to look at our biases, look at our frustration, look at our sin in this area, our pride and our selfishness. It allows us to move forward.
Guys are playing fantasy football; some guys I think even play fantasy baseball. I don't get involved with it. I have five kids; I just don't have time. Not that anything's wrong with the fantasy, but I just don't have time for it with my lifestyle.
I think, over the time that you're in the league, you learn what your body needs: you learn the amount of soft tissue work you need, the amount of dry needling, or the amount of sleep or your nutrition. You also understand that you have to pull back.
Usually, 'All Lives Matter' comes as a response to 'Black Lives Matter'; it doesn't exist in a vacuum. So when people say 'Black Lives Matter,' a lot of times the response 'All Lives Matter' can seem very condescending, dismissive to 'Black Lives Matter.'
I'M HOPEFUL, because I know that while we still have race issues in America, we enjoy a much different normal than those of our parents and grandparents. I see it in my personal relationships with teammates, friends and mentors. And it's a beautiful thing.
There shouldn't be any looting or anything like that. But we're seeing a lot of frustration, and nobody knows the answer. All of us are saying we need an answer, and what I'm saying is we need, all of us, a heart change so, as America, we can move forward.
You're grateful to have brothers in the league, and then when it comes down to it, and you have a brother on the same team, that's awesome. It's a lot more support and a lot more intensity we can bring out in each other because we know each other like that.
I was running super slow. Chris thought I was done. Then one day at the end of February, I woke up and my body felt good. I was just so happy. I was faster than my brother again. I got all my moves back. I told him, 'Brother, I'm back, and now you're done!'
Whether in the locker room, the community, or at home, our goal should not be to simply behave in a specific way. It should instead be to instill the correct values in our hearts, so that our actions will flow out unimpeded, confirming what we truly believe.
You've just got to have to put the work in. Put work first. Put the hours in and the time in, and do your job. And when you get a little time off, you can go out and have a little fun. But you have to make sure you get done what you need to get done first off.
To this day, I still haven't touched one dime of my signing bonus or NFL contract money. I live off my marketing money and haven't blown it on any big-money expensive cars, expensive jewelry, or tattoos and still wear my favorite pair of jeans from high school.
In the public, it seems to be painted that when minorities get pregnant, they need to get abortions, especially when it comes to teen pregnancy. It's like, when black girls are pregnant, it's like a statistic, but when white girls get pregnant, they get a TV show.
You grow up a certain way, and you make decisions within your family, but then you go to college, and the decisions become harder. You are away from home, from the influence of your parents, dealing with peer pressure. There's a lot of stuff that goes on in college.
In sports, a team is surrounded with people with different backgrounds, with different races, and with different religions. In order to win, everybody comes together. I feels like that's what the U.S.A. represents. Everyone just has to come together in order to win.
I didn't know if I was going to be drafted, period. I remember sitting there and just praying that whatever God has for me to happen, and I didn't get any calls from anybody else the whole round. And then I got a call from New England five hours after the draft started.
I think, as athletes, we've been given a platform, and we can use it in a lot of different ways. We can use it for negative. We can use it for positive. We can be indifferent. But if you've been given a platform, I think God is pleased when you share... His truth in love.
I can identify many different experiences that I've had over the course of my life and things that I've witnessed where it seemed that black men, specifically me or someone else may have got the, you know, different treatment than somebody else would in that same situation.
A good vacation for me is going to warm weather. Being able to go outside, in the sun, hit the beach, play outside sports. Being active outside. Going swimming, hanging by the pool, having a couple drinks, having a couple of your close buddies around, and just having a blast.
All I'm saying is, is God the god who we look to for comfort during tragedies? Is he the god who can control all those things, or is he the god that we don't even trust with our daily lives... As long as there's prayer and exams, as long as there's games, there will be prayers.
Play more than one sport in high school. If you play, say, football and basketball, you can learn to be physical and you can take those physical aspects of both sports and become better in both sports. Basketball players use some of the same skills football players do and vice versa.
I mean there's a college kid left in everyone. I bet you, too, if you could go back you would for a night or two, so why not? My brother's still in college, my little brother, so it's always good to go back and get a little glimpse of it and to hang out with him for a weekend or two.
Everyone always helped me out growing up, and everyone now supports me Sunday. So whenever there's a chance to give back, to the community, to the less fortunate kids so they have the opportunity to gain the most potential they can in their life to be success, it's always good to do.
One thing I struggled with early in my career was the delicate balance between my performance and my identity. When things on the field went well, I was cheerful and felt important. When things went poorly, my countenance and self-concept plummeted, and I was not pleasant to be around.
I sometimes think they should have said 'Black Lives Matter Too,' because that is really what is being said. The outcry is that historically and presently, the feeling is that black lives don't matter as much as white lives because we don't see the same type of things happening to them.
After a workout, you definitely have to have a protein shake. I drink my six-pound whey protein all the time, too. I throw some fruit in there - strawberries, blueberries - with some peanut butter and banana, and it gives you all the recovery you need from a hard day of lifting and running.
In the off season, you work out for two hours a day, and then you got all this other time off. I like doing other stuff. Football obviously isn't going to last a lifetime either, so it's always cool to get in front of a camera, do commercials, and do endorsements for products that you love.
Our dad introduced us to all of it - to the weights, to eating healthy, all that good stuff. He introduced it, got on us every once in a while, and left it up to us if we wanted to do it. And seeing my older brothers do it right in front of me, I wanted to do it because I looked up to them.
I've always been a fan of football, always watched the NFL and it's great to always sit back wherever I can this year. You sit back and enjoy the games, pop a little sports drink - not any pop or soda - lay back, watch the games. It's always cool to see how the games go down and just enjoy them.
In the same way that I cannot be perfect and need grace for my mistakes, I also need to give my kids grace. I am constantly learning to be patient with them, understanding that they won't do everything right all the time, while still holding them to a high standard, as their heavenly father does.
The NFL goes to great lengths to protect what it calls 'the integrity of the game.' The same should be said for us as individuals. Integrity, the truthful interaction of word and deed, not only creates leaders in the locker room who are worthy of being followed; it is also vital for success at home.
For everybody, I think that we all, when we look at this situation of race, we need a change of heart, and I said it before. I believe the heart change comes from repenting of your racism, repenting of your bias, repenting of your prejudice and understanding that, you know what, God sees us all the same.
Just put football first, or your job first. Give everything you've got all week, work hard, work super-hard to take it to the next level every week. And when you feel like you got to the point where you want to be, you definitely need the time to go out, relax, have a good time, take all the stress off it.