hthill

Love the /r/ChiBears shoutout. Bears fans are EVERYWHERE. I love that.

For me, the two things I miss the most are the guys and the games. I was never a guy who defined himself as a football player, so in many respects, that makes leaving the game behind a lot easier. I spend a lot of time trying to help get former players better access to the support they need to improve their quality of life after football. Its a strange beast to "retire" at 30. Many guys have a hard time reinventing themselves, trying to find a new passion when they feel washed up at such a young age. Combine that with having a salary going from 7 figures to 5, and the adjustments are a lot for some guys to handle all at once.

You'd probably get me in FIFA, but its one of my favorite games right now. Go sign up on Kickstarter and we can find out!

I've known Jay since he was a freshman at Vandy. I've kinda watched him grow up. He's always had this brash resistance to authority. I think its funny how polarizing his indifference towards his public perception has been. Maybe not haha funny, but an interesting social experiment or something.

I've never really called him out about it, despite us being friends. I do have to think at some point, with so much criticism, he has to wonder what the point in trying to please everyone is if he's gonna take heat regardless. I also think he could own Chicago if he'd just give the city an inch. I think he has made a lot of steps in the right direction. Anybody who listened to his show on ESPN1000 knows he's a funny guy, maybe a little sarcastic, but generally pretty easy going off the field.

I tend to think his competitiveness gets mistaken for a-holeishness because he hasn't won the big one yet. Does he crossover that threshold if he gets a ring?

That's about 5 questions in one. The running back rule is the most controversial, but do note that its pretty much only running backs who are speaking out. As a defensive guy, I am biased to think that rules increasingly favor the offense, for revenue reasons more than safety reasons. That makes me prone to supporting the crack back rules.

I attended the Competition Committee meeting four of five years in a row at the Combine. It was kind of a joke. Nothing got decided there, but it gave the committee the power to say they had "player input." Even having seen the plumbing, I still have no idea how they decide what becomes rule and what doesn't.

Your closest buddies usually fall into two groups, your rookie class and your position group. From my rookie class, the only two left are Briggs and Tillman. Both are good friends. We all kind of grew up together, from wild young rookies to suburban guys with kids who have "nice little Saturdays" with the fam.

Other good buddies include the rest of the linebacker, Roach, Urlacher, and a bunch of guys who aren't there anymore like Todd Johnson, Cam Worrell, etc.

I have a couple great "this is your life in the NFL" kind of moments. Its funny how other than some of those highlights, most pro athletes lead pretty mundane lives. LOTS of NFL guys are total homebodies.

OK, my favorite story was in 2005, we clinched the NFC North in like Week 11 by beating the Vikings. In the locker room after the game, we were trying to plan our dinner that night for our annual "linebacker night." Urlacher decided that because we were rolling along so well, we needed to celebrate in style. He chartered a plane, the whole LB room flew to Vegas that night, and stayed in this ridiculous villa at the Bellagio. Urlacher stands out everywhere, even Vegas, so that was a really over the top couple of days, not in any illicit kind of way, but just in a "I can't believe I'm sharing bottle service with Kid Rock and Rihanna" kind of way. I'm a pretty normal dude, so those moments were always a little hilarious to me.