I think every year you're in the NFL you probably lose three or five years off your lifespan.

I've never thought that I would see any man of color, not just a black president, but any man of color, I never thought that I would live to see that. I thought maybe my grandchildren would, but I never thought I would. So when Barack Obama first started to run I was like, "I've never heard of this guy - he probably doesn't have a shot." But then he started picking up steam and that piqued my interest.

Malcolm Gladwell was on TV talking about wanting to have college football banned. It's interesting just because of him even bringing the topic up. Sooner or later, whether people are for or against it whether they like it or not, that is going to be a discussion that is going to come up. That's how it all starts - someone brings up the inquiry: Should we continue to let our children play Pop Warner, high school, and college football? Ten, 15, 20 years from now, who knows where that conversation is going to be.

Anyone that knows me will tell you that any time we're going somewhere, if there's a US flag, they'll always point it out because they know I love it. Just how our whole country started and just the migration of Europeans to this country, all of that, just the history of everything has fascinated me, but my biggest thing is I want people to understand that when there are hostilities between nations there's always two sides.

It's like, 'Wow. Yes, I had fun... but damn, was it really all worth it when I'm in a wheelchair at the age of 45 and can't play with my grandkids?'

Player safety is definitely something that has to be at the top of the list. I think that the union and the NFL are doing all they can to make sure they're protecting the players the best they can.

I always hear people saying, "If I can just help one person, or if I can just stop one person from doing what I did." I don't think one person is enough. I feel you can help more than one person, help as many as you can. That's something that I would like to leave as my legacy: That I helped a lot of people and made some people make better decisions after looking at the decisions I've made in my life.