I definitely want to be known as an educated person as well as being a good football player.
I definitely see myself as a leader. One of the ways I've been lucky enough to lead and likely to continue to lead is just my actions and the way that I approach the game and working hard and being a player that steps up in big-time situations when plays need to be made.
A lot of players have told me they see me as a protector of my teammates, that, side by side, I'm there when something goes down, and I step up beside them and for them when things get nasty. I play the game hard, and I play it physical.
Outside of my parents, it's my older sister, Ngum. She lives with me in Detroit and helps me with my day-to-day stuff. She's somebody I've always looked up to. When she was leaving high school and going to college, I wanted to follow in her footsteps.
I guess I'm a fun-loving teddy bear. I've got two sides to me. Obviously, there's the football side that a lot of people see - the mean, ferocious, coming-after-the-quarterback guy. But off the field, I'm a calm, cool, collected guy.
Just understanding that if you're not growing up, you're just moving backwards, and I'm a person that I always want to grow and learn and not be the smartest person in the room, because when you're not the smartest person in the room, you're always learning things.
I remember watching Barry Sanders highlights as a kid, and the Lions always being a fun team. I, personally, really never had a real negative connotation with the team. And I didn't really listen to those who did after I was drafted.
For whatever reason, Coach Schwartz and I weren't all that close at first. We didn't have that kind of relationship, really. I don't know why, maybe because I was a rookie, but I never felt real comfortable just popping my head in his office and sitting down to talk.
Coach Cunningham's my guy. Without me saying a word, he can read my body language and facial expressions and tell me exactly what I'm thinking and feeling. We're actually very similar people.
It's not the norm, I guess, to see someone as aggressive as me being more or less very athletic. You see me running, having a big, violent hit, it's going to look bad, but that's the natural ability I've been given. Why would I let it run to the wayside and not use it?