I love playing football. I love playing for the Patriots.
I’ve always been privileged to play for Coach Belichick, who I’ve always said is the best coach in the history of the league.
What strikes me most about Best Buddies International is the simplicity and magnitude of the mission. Friendship is a simple idea.
You have to believe in the process. You have to believe in the things that you are doing to help the team win. I think you have to take the good with the bad.
I didn’t alter the footballs in any way.
You can’t go out and practice average on Wednesday, average on Thursday, okay on Friday and then expect to play well on Sunday.
Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.
I knew I became a professional when I stop paying attention to what time it was.
Losing sucks, and especially to the Jets.
If you don’t play to win don’t play at all.
If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.
You go through high school and college the same way: never listening to your coaches because you’re the best. But when you get to the pros, all that stops because everybody there has talent.
I can’t do anything with what’s happened in the past. I have to just go forward with the most awareness I can going forward and trying to be the best I can be for our team.
Everybody has an opinion. I think everybody has the right to believe whatever they want. I don’t ever cast judgment on someone’s belief system.
I feel like I’ve always played within the rules. I would never do anything to break the rules. I believe in fair play and I’ll always believe in that for as long as I’m playing.
I think you can just go out and try to be the best you can be, deal with people with respect, with honesty, with integrity, have a high moral standard. I’ve always really tried to exemplify that as an athlete. I’ll continue to try to do that.
I approach every week the same. I think I’ve always tried to be very professional to how I approach the game, my preparation. Every game is important.
Everyone is dealing with something. This is life; this is not just a piece of cake.
I don’t put any thought into the footballs after I choose them. When you’re out there playing in front of 70,000 people, like a home crowd, you don’t think about it. You’re just reacting to the game.
I think I’ve been fortunate over the years to be at a point in my career where I really get to choose the partnerships that I really want to take on and they’re a perfect fit.
Wisdom, someone said, is about knowing the difference between the things you can control and the things you can’t.