Growing up on a farm, I saw that if I didn't go to the military or go to school, and I knew my mom and my family wasn't going to be able to send me to school out of their pocket, so it basically came down to athletics. I knew I didn't want to work on a farm. I knew I didn't want to do manual labor the rest of my life.

I've said numerous times the hardest job in America isn't being a professional athlete. It's not being a matador or having some job that puts your life at risk. The hardest job in America is being black, because it's the one thing you can't outrun.

Colin Kaepernick had a... maybe he had an epiphany. Maybe he had a realization that 'I have a higher calling the playing quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.'

When I went to the Pro Bowl, I went as a tight end. When I made the All Pro team, I made it as a tight end. When they introduced us and I ran out of the tunnel, they introduced me as a tight end. So how is that possible that now that my career is over, they say, 'Well, he put up stats like a wide receiver?' It's not my fault I was ahead of my time.

I was a very good baseball and football player, but my father always told me I was much more interested in how I looked playing baseball or football than in actually playing. There's great truth in that.

There's always that time in football where people say that when you have the dip, it's how well do you overcome it. And when you do overcome it, you then end up being a much better player and generally your career lasts a lot longer after getting through that period.

I think football saves many people. It can give you a life of luxury, but people don't see all the effort that goes in behind the scenes. That might mean not seeing your family or missing your mother's birthday; many players are so focused that they miss the birth of their children.

When I played against Chelsea, there was always a big motivation because it was a special game; it was always one of the biggest games of the season. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to join Chelsea: because I want to be part of this kind of team.