When I'm sat at 45 and retired, I want to look back and see what I've done and that I've played games rather than having come to the end of my career and tailed off.
I'm sure there were concussions galore back when we played, but the doctors would just say, 'Shake it off,' or something like that... or 'Come on, you got to be tough... get back in there.' I see so many guys who played pro football in their 50s now who are so debilitated from having played it.
As a tennis player, or any professional athlete, our career has a shelf life. I don't want to waste any opportunities, I don't want to look back on it when I'm 45 and think I could have done a lot more.
I've played under some of the biggest and best managers and achieved almost everything in football. Of course it hurts when people question it, but I've come to the end of my career and can look back and say I've achieved everything with every club that I've played for.
I want to look back at the end of my career having numerous caps under my belt. That is one of my aims.
I would rather have come to Baltimore than the Yankees. You look at their situation, they're the kingpin and you want to be that underdog that knocks them off the top. That's pretty much the situation I've been in my whole career. It just makes for a better season when you knock the big guys off the top.
I want to be happy, to look back and feel I danced well at the end of my career and didn't dwindle off. It would be too sad.
I don't want to think results, I don't want to think positions. I just want to come in, do my job, and we'll see where we end up. I think that's the best way to look at it, because then you start focusing on the outcome rather than focusing on the work that it takes to get to that outcome.
Well you always want to play against the best. That's what you're going to get in the Super Bowl. To go against guys like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady who I have tons of respect for; I watch their games, I study their games, I try to learn from them. It gets you excited, but hopefully not too excited. Just focus on the game. Then when my career is done then I can look back at it.
I try to look at this music career thing as the means to an end. And really, at the end of it, I see myself on a sailboat, sailing off the edge of the world.
When I look back I can tell that after I started having a family, I certainly wanted to make games that could be played with all the family members.
If you go off the Senior Bowl, that's basically what I can do. I played H-back, I played fullback, I played tight end, I played slot receiver, I ran routes, I caught some balls, blocked, just doing that stuff.
I retired and came back in '97. Woo! I mean, come on! I don't know, man. A six-year layoff? That was crazy! My career was relatively short, whether you look at either its length in years or the number of fights I had. But it was brutal.
As a player, you always want to know what you can do. At the end of your career, you can look back and say, look, I was able to get this much out of my playing career and I was able to become this type of player. I think that's what allows you to sleep well at night.
It's something to be proud about when I'm done, to look back at my career and know I've handled myself the way I wanted to - that my son can look back at my career and be proud of his dad.
I grew up playing games, and I remember Christmas 1981 when my dad got us an Intellivision, and we all sat around and played 'Astrosmash' for hours on end. It was a big part of my youth.
I've played more park games than NBA games, and I had a 10-year NBA career.