I know my role on this team, and I'm expected to prepare and to perform every week and play well. I relish that opportunity - to be somebody the guys can count on week in and week out, to play really well. That's what really motivates me: to make my coaches proud, my teammates proud, and the fans proud.
Authenticity is everything! You have to wake up every day and look in the mirror, and you want to be proud of the person who's looking back at you. And you can only do that if you're being honest with yourself and being a person of high character. You have an opportunity every single day to write that story of your life.
I think some people forget sometimes I do have to go to the grocery store; I do enjoy going out to dinner. I have to get my oil changed from time to time. I do all the normal things. I cut my grass. People kind of forget that normal part, that we do a lot of the stuff that everybody else does, but we all have our talents, and mine is in football.
There should be a minimum on the air pressure but not a maximum. Every game, they're taking air out of the footballs I'm throwing, and I think that's a disadvantage for the way that I like them prepped.
For me, it's always been about preparation, and the more prepared I can be each week, the less pressure I feel and the more confident I am. As your confidence grows, it's only natural that the pressure you feel diminishes.
You talk all the time about being connected, being a unit, believing in each other. But if you have unnamed sources, people out there cutting you down, and then you find out it's the person calling the plays - that would be really hard to deal with, to look at him the same way.
I know a lot is going to be on our shoulders, especially the way we're starting games out. We have to start faster; I have to be sharper from the start, and I will be. And I'm confident that if we can get this thing started out a little better each week that we can get on that roll and be tough to stop.
I still feel like I've got a lot of great football in front of me and the way that I've taken care of myself better the last few years. I think is going to put me in position to be able to play really well late in my 30s and even in my early 40s, possibly, if they'd like to keep me around that long and I can still play a little bit.
When it comes to setting the market values, I let that stuff take care of itself. I know my value in this league, and I know the team appreciates me. I'm going to continue to make myself an indispensable part of this roster. When you do that, when your time comes up to get a contract, you usually get a contract extension.
For me, it's always been about preparation, and the more prepared I can be each week, the less pressure I feel and the more confident I am. As your confidence grows, it's only natural that the pressure you feel diminishes.
Playing the quarterback position, there are so many things you need to master that improvement ends up taking place on graduated levels.
How you deal with adversity says a lot about the kind of players you've got and the kind of team we've got.
Touch is more important than arm strength. You want to really allow the receiver to run underneath the throw. It'll give you a little margin for error if you undershoot it a bit.
I think being recognized more is something you have to get used to, whether it's here or in California or when I'm traveling. It's more a part of my life. People recognize me from my play or a commercial I've done. It's just a normal part of life now.
I think there needs to be modified penalties in training camp because there's severely modified compensation in training camp for all of us.
I think as you get older, you realize there's always going to be critics. Critics are going to win every time because they can change their critique based on the stats and their own personal feelings.
I'm at a point where there isn't any wasted movement in the throwing motion. Everything is consistent and smooth. When I first got into the league, I held the ball really high. That was the standard in college, and it messed up my timing a little bit - the draw, bringing it back, then the release.