I hope I can be as good of a father to my son as my dad was to me.
Calvin Johnson
I have always been like this. I take after my father. I'm just chill.
My biggest regret is that I wasn't able to help give our fans a championship.
It's cool because football, as much as it gives, it takes away a lot, too.
Some days I wouldn't even go to class. I'd sit in the room and play video games with my friends and eat powdered mashed potatoes.
Any time you're dealing with an ankle, you've got to run, you've got to cut, you've got to do all those things. It makes it tough.
I don't feel like sitting around doing nothing would benefit me.
I had some nerve damage that was kind of messing up my grip a little.
I'm just a worker.
Be real with yourself in whatever area of your life and your game that you need improvement on. Once you figure that out, you just have to go out and work on it. For me, it's footwork. I constantly work on it, and it's a never-ending process.
I got a finger that's literally bone-on-bone. This bad boy, it gets smaller. The more and more I do, it grinds bone-on-bone.
I've got a lot of miles on my legs.
I got stuff that's going to hurt for the rest of my life.
My dad's funny. He's laid back and a cool guy.
I think any time you bring those guys in, one with a lot of playoff experience, with rings - those guys won - guys in the locker room gravitate towards those guys. Those guys have been there, so there's a lot that they can teach the guys.
When I first came into the league, my first three, four years, I had a teammate from college win a Super Bowl.
I am not cocky or real showboatish.
Guys get concussions, they don't tell the coaches. It happens.
You know what's funny? There's times when you catch a ball and really didn't even see that ball. You're like, 'That couldn't have been all me.'
I don't even like to talk Lions too much just because the way our relationship ended.
It wasn't really until the 10th or 11th grade when I started to play well, and football took the place of baseball, which was my love when I was five years old. I don't know what happened; baseball just got boring to me, I guess.
I'm a Southern guy, so Jeezy, T.I., and Outkast are always playing on my iPod.
I've been a Madden guy since I was little.
You have to be physical. If you are not, defensive backs will try to pick on you.
I have not suffered any nerve damage, nor have I received any treatment for nerve damage.
I was a baseball guy. Mom wouldn't let me play football when I was little because she was scared I'd get hurt. So, I finally convinced her to let me play in 7th grade.
For me, to just have my own shoe is unbelievable. As a kid, you see Jordans and wonder what that feels like to have your own shoe, and the fact that I have one is really surreal.
I have my own people that make my clothes because it's hard for me to find stuff that fits.
I like to dress up every now and then.
That's what everybody calls me, 'Cheat Code,' because they just throw the ball up to me.
As NFL players, we have such a platform to spread the Word of God. And that is an area I don't mind speaking out on at all. As far as talking about my football skills, however, I will let my abilities and actions speak for themselves.
During the season, I dodge the media, kind of. It's not that I'm trying to avoid them, but I know if they get a hold of me, there's going to be, like, 10 people around me, and I'm going to have to answer question after question, where in that time, after practice, I need to be taking care of my body and recovering.
If I was to keep playing, I had to play in Detroit, and it just wasn't for me anymore.
I know where my body's at, know how it feels, you know.
Concussions happen. If not on every play, then they happen like every other, every third play, you know.
It's simple to get a concussion, you know. I don't know how many I've had over my career, you know, but I've definitely had my fair share.
The team doctor, the team trainers, they work for the team. And I love 'em, you know. They're some good people, you know. They want to see you do good. But at the same time, they work for the team, you know. They're trying to do whatever they can to get you back on the field and make your team look good.
I had fun while I did it, and I left it all out there on the field. I'm tapped out.
I'm not coming back to play.
I got chronic stuff that everybody has when they're done playing football for any length of time. So the good thing is I'm able to walk. I feel good. I'm able to spend more time with the fam.
The thing I don't miss is waking up in the morning, hurting, the grind of the game.
The team needs me out there on the field. And sometimes you allow that to jeopardize yourself, but that's just the nature of the world.
I don't want to dog the NFL.
I gotta go through, like, a little routine when I wake up in the morning to get everything functioning and ready to go. But, the only thing is everything just goes back to gridlock so fast once I sit down, 'cause you know you go to work again.
I'm on 'Dancing with the Stars' because I want to prove my sister wrong. My sister literally told the world that I could not dance, so I have to redeem myself.
I've got a lot of other things I want to do.
That's everybody's goal, when they come to the league, is to win a Super Bowl. That's the ultimate goal.
I'm an honest guy.
I've got nothing to be ashamed of.
I feel fine as long I'm not running around.
