I am more mature. I'm a better football player. I just feel like this is my time.

At the core, we're all spiritual beings.

I can look back at it now as definitely like an initiation into adulthood. Almost overnight in the NFL, I was put on a pedestal and I was supposed to be this icon or this image of what a professional athlete was supposed to be. I felt like I just got stuck trying to be someone else and I forgot who I actually was.

I stepped away to find out more about myself, which I was having difficulty doing as a football player. I got a chance to travel the world. I studied Eastern philosophy, and I've grown as a person so much.

I think I have a tendency to look at things subjectively rather than objectively when I reflect on my experience.

My whole thing in life is I just want freedom. I thought that money would give me that freedom. I was wrong. It bound me more than it freed me, because now I had more things to worry about, more people asking for money, I thought I had to buy a house and nice cars and different things that people with money are supposed to do.

If you identify yourself as a great football player, anytime anyone challenges that, you're going to have some kind of problem.