Ever since I was a kid I've always loved history. I think that kind of catapulted things, but I would say the two major factors were maybe 9/11 and the election of Barack Obama.

I'm not going to be the guy to be 36, 37 years old still trying to hang on and play in the NFL. I'll be 33 in a couple weeks, and there's a million things I want to do with my life before my time is up, which is hopefully 40, 50 years down the line from now at least. So I'd definitely be content.

I think that we do have a great country, but there's a lot of things that we're not so great at. Unfortunately, education is one of them.

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?'

To me probably the biggest disappointments, as far as a football career goes, is I feel like I didn't live up to my potential, and I didn't win a Super Bowl ring.

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.

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.