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I tell you this: I'm not an outdoorsman. Actually, one of my things is to pick a little corner in Borders or Barnes & Noble and fall back and just read.
I was lucky because growing up in tiny little Bailey, North Carolina, we had a satellite dish, so we got WGN. Which meant we got almost every Bulls game.
When you get to the big games you never know when you are going to be back so you've got to try as best as you can to take advantage of those opportunities.
It's one thing to play football in this league and make a living, but it's a totally different thing to come to a place with a rich tradition like the Bears.
People change teams all the time. People might not go from Green Bay to Chicago or from Chicago to Green Bay all the time, but people change teams all the time.
I live on a small town on the lake, and I mean people would get on their jet skis and just post up in front of my crib, trying to see who was there in my house.
I want to maximize my potential as a player. I want to be as good as I could possibly be. And if I do that, I think I could be one of the best players out there.
I guess more than anything, Green Bay just felt like home. You know, small town, good people who love their football... it was a really great experience being a part of that culture.
The Super Bowl ring eluded me, but I don't need that to validate me. I would have loved to have helped deliver that to the fans in Carolina, but I'm content with the career that I had.
You know, I think sometimes certain players - and I don't name names - but certain players have a certain haircut, they have certain sack celebrations. They draw a lot of attention to themselves.
I'm thankful that I have been able to play so long and still be healthy. I'm not all banged up and beaten down. I still feel good. But as much as I would love to play forever, I know that I can't.
If my play is not to run and chase the ball, if my play is to stay backside, then I've got to stay backside. I've got to be disciplined. I can't run across the field and chase stuff that's not mine.
I didn't want to do media or appearances. You've got to do this and that, fly here to film something. I didn't want to cut into my time for that. You can't pay for your peace of mind and your sanity.
Obviously, we know people aren't as fortunate and blessed as we are. I learned a little bit about the impact we have as professionals, and how we can help, how impactful it is for just your presence.
I can assure everyone that there is no academic fraud as it relates to my college transcript. I took every course with qualified members of the UNC faculty and I earned every grade whether it was good or bad.
You need a certain type of balance in life and I know where to put football in its proper place. But my love for the game, I have it just like everybody else. If you don't, you're going to get yourself hurt out there.
I was so sheltered as a kid that when I went to college, it was like taking the chains off. That's where the trouble came from. It was the first time for me being by myself, and I got into everything you could think of.
A guy like Drew Brees is a guy that knows how to undress a defense. Most of the time he knows where he's gonna go before he even gets the ball. So he's ready to deliver that ball almost as soon as it comes to his hands.
My stepdad was a farmer, so growing up, during summer breaks, I woke up every morning and went to work. Harvesting tobacco, picking cucumbers, gathering watermelons from the patch, pulling up sweet potatoes... stuff like that.
I want to have an impact on the game. Instead of a sack, how about an interception for a touchdown? I could get 15 tackles. I'm just using those as examples, but any kind of impact would be fine, whether it's a sack or anything else.
If you're playing 55 to 60 snaps, you have opportunities to pace yourself, pick spots. When you're not playing as many and you don't know necessarily when you're going to be in, you do have to sometimes make it happen when you're out there.
I love the game just as much as anybody else. But at the same time, I also understand that life is more than football, too. People might get that misconstrued sometimes, too, that I don't care because I'm not die-hard football, eat, sleep and drink it all day and all night.
Basically, if I decide to retire I don't want it to be one of those situations where, you know, after a couple of months I have the itch to play again. That's not something I want to do. I want to put a lot of thought into it and make the final decision. I don't want to waver on it at all.
You ask somebody right now who are the top two or three sack persons and they couldn't tell you. You're a professional and you want to perform and you want to achieve those goals. But being out with the people and giving back to the community, it's going to be more impactful and long lasting.
A lot of people don't really understand that a statistic is an indicator, but it doesn't really give the full picture of the body of work. There's been time when I've had one sack or no sacks and controlled a whole game, and I've seen other cats get three or four sacks and it had no effect on that game.
It's not important for me to be a star, but it is important for me to be one of the better players. I won't feel comfortable with not living up to my potential. I don't want to be spoken of as the player who had potential who never reached it, so I am going to work extra hard to try to be the best I can be.
That one thing that people say about me taking plays off, I feel like somebody said that when I was playing in college and it has followed me throughout my career. Because I feel like if we had the film and you wanted to pick one person who was taking a play off on a particular play, you could pick anybody.
After considering the ways that I might be able to help young college students, I decided to continue my support of the Light on the Hill scholarship. I would like to endorse this particular fund and encourage other former UNC students who have found success to reach back and assist the efforts of current and future Tar Heels.