I don't ever try to sound like, 'it's a piece of cake. Be chaste 'til your married.' But you strive and battle. It's a battle.
Head coach and quarterback have a record attached to them. And I have always felt a great responsibility to help lead our team to win games, the division and ultimately the Super Bowl.
I remember asking my mom, 'Can you be the quarterback and the drum major at halftime?' I mean it's like, what in the world? I wanted to go play quarterback, and I wanted to lead the band. I don't know how old I was but I vaguely remember asking them that.
I take the role of leadership as the most important job I have. Yes, it's the passes and all the different things you have to do, but it's leading and it's in the huddle and it's in the weight room and the meeting rooms. It's that role I think comes first.
Cool under pressure can be misinterpreted. I'm fired up, but in my mind, I'm calm. Here comes the next play, hurry up, let's go.
I play with the same energy, passion and fire that I played with as a 10-year-old in north Alabama, and I'll continue to play that way. I think sometimes that's misrepresented. There's nothing I say out there that I can't say to my mom, wife or daughters. It's all clean.
When we went to mass that first Sunday after moving to a new place, that was where we felt at home and were able to say, 'well, home is anywhere, it doesn't matter where we live because we have the faith.'
I don't if I can handle not being on the sideline and being part of a team trying to win a football game on Friday nights.
My father converted from being Southern Baptist when I was very young. He was determined that we get to Mass every Sunday, which served as the foundation for everything else. You simply do not miss Mass. Period. When the father of the family says we go, then we go.
