You become a family when you're on a football team. It's the ultimate team sport, so you have no choice but to feel like family, and that never leaves you.
Nnamdi Asomugha
I hate the term black sheep, but I just felt like I wasn't keeping up. It was a subtle pressure I put on myself.
I think any time you get a boost of confidence, it fuels you to do more, and that kept happening for me.
To look back where I started from, you can't help but be amazed.
I'm really bad at self-promotion.
I'm always willing to help out when people have stories and they bring them to me. I also like the completely fun films like 'Patti Cake$.' My taste is, if it feels like it's something I'd like to see, then I'll get behind it.
I'm very grateful for my time in Philadelphia and I want to thank the Eagles organization for the opportunity to play here.
Doing interviews after a game, you can't give your true emotions. You can't tap into them. So when you do that for so long, you go into acting and it can be difficult to suddenly just be open and vulnerable.
Something clicked, and I was like, 'I gotta be prepared. This could end at any time.' That was my second year in the league. From that point on I started doing broadcasting and things like that in an attempt to find my passion - something I could do after football.
The leadership qualities that you have to have to be a producer on a film is something I learned being a captain on the team.
There are a handful of guys that are really good at what they're doing from the receiver position, which is the easiest position in the NFL. There are a handful of guys that are good at it. There's not one particular guy that would concern me when I'm going into a game, but there are guys that you have to take notice of in the league.
I've always worked my butt off physically and mentally.
I didn't have the luxury of going to the four year school for acting.
Everything in life is about confidence. The more you have, the further you'll go usually.
You kind of have to be secretive about what you're doing post-football because if you're really outward and everyone knows about it while you're playing football then the rap on you is, 'Oh, you don't care about the game.'
I've been blessed. I've had a fortunate, successful career in the NFL. It's been longer than I initially expected when I came into the NFL.
As a player, you're not really in control of your destiny and the way you make a living.
It takes time to change a system and to change a mindset.
You walk into a room and there's already judgment. You know, like football players can't act or you're going to come in and be stiff.
I'm one of the guys that thinks you have to spend a lot of time at whatever your craft is in order to sustain it, and in order to get better at it.
As far as acting, I just went in and just started training. It was the first thing I did right when I retired. I just went in and found class, and found people, found the right coaches that could sort of just train me along.
I'm a class clown.
I don't talk smack because I feel like it's a waste of energy.
Months after I retired, the Kings won the Stanley Cup and I was there for that game... I happened to be there with a buddy of mine and I was like, 'Oh, I miss this.'
In high school, my dream was to go to the NBA. But when recruiting came around, the letters for football compared to basketball were like 25 to one, and my one wasn't from Duke.
The beauty of football is you have to perform through ups and downs in a public form with a team and the discipline and the pushing through it and the preparation that it takes to be great - all of those things have served me well.
I talked to a lot of people that switched careers. Not necessarily to acting, but switched jobs. The 'becoming a student again' is the thing that always kept coming up.
In high school, you can just go out there and play. In the NFL it was so much more mental.
I was never a big spender.
For all of the achievements and awards, to be able to retire as a Raider ranks highest among all of those.
I don't learn as well, I think, in like a structured way. I kind of have to be thrown into it.
Anytime you leave something you've done and where you've been for nearly a decade, it's going to be different.
People told me all of the time, 'You could be such a big star if you just talked about yourself more,' but I'm not good at that. It's always been about team.
For athletes, it's extremely tough to trust people with your finances. It's so easy to be victimized.
When I hear about a player losing his money, I'll rarely, if ever, point a finger at the player because I know how difficult it is. It's not always, 'Look at this idiot who got paid all these millions of dollars and lost it all.' It may be more like, 'This naive kid with a million things going on in his life put his faith in the wrong people.'
I enjoy stories that can spark a conversation.
In film, there's always this looking for the 'If you lay down and burst into tears, you did a good job.'
As far as producing, I was thrown into it on a film called Beasts of No Nation when we were in Ghana three months after I retired.
I was maybe halfway through my career, and I was shooting a Nike commercial, and the director came to the trailer and said, 'Hey man, you're really gifted at this. I get a lot of athletes that come in, but you were prepared, and you made everything seem very natural. I really think you should look into this.'
When I was a kid, my aunt snuck us into see 'Boyz n the Hood.'
My position in football was cornerback, and what your job is as a cornerback is to read the person that's in front of you - read their body language and anticipate what's going to happen next.
I think any time you're able to humanize the plight of the wrongfully incarcerated, then you're doing your job.
I always go back to the fact that one man can make a difference. No matter what the issue, we always have the power to change it.
I don't think you can ever get bored or lose focus as a competitor.
When you're playing to get into the playoffs, your contract is the last thing on your mind.
Oh man, you miss it so much when you finish playing, especially when you play for most of your life. You miss just being a part of a team and being a part of the guys. So I definitely think producing brought that back for me. A bunch of people working together for a common goal.
Luckily enough for me I reached a level in the game where no one questioned my work ethic or my ability and then I was like, I don't care. Every off-season I might do a scene in a TV show or something just to keep that going.
When you go into free agency and have options, any team is up for you to be on - and the Raiders, obviously with me having been there for so long, have a great shot at it.
Seven straight years of losing isn't fun for anyone.
My favorite piece of clothing as a boy was a purple Magic Johnson jersey from the Los Angeles Lakers.
