I'm not a racist. And to judge me by that one word is wrong. In no way, shape or form is it ever acceptable for me to use that word, even if it's friend to friend on a voicemail.

My vision of being a professional, as opposed to being a football player before, has completely changed. Being a pro is doing everything right all the time. It sounds cliche, but if you apply that to strength training, if you apply that to a lot of body work, if you apply that to making good decisions, all the work I did on myself and all the time I spent with therapists and doctors and family, that was my mantra: "Do it right all the time." It started to build momentum, and it started to build up steam. Once I got the opportunity to come back and play, I just kept using that and it helped.

My actions were coming from a place of love.

I'm not a racist. And to judge me by that one word is wrong. In no way, shape or form is it ever acceptable for me to use that word, even if it's friend to friend on a voicemail.

You go back and look at the situations from both angles, and that's where the progress and the growth came, by being able to look at it from the other side. Moving forward, knowing to do the right thing was learning from my mistakes of the past. Sometimes it's just, don't do that.

The biggest thing for me is surrounding myself with good people and steering clear, far clear, of all my demons in the past.