When you got the ball in overtime and you were first and goal at the two, was there any thought of running the ball?
What ended up transpiring there was all on me. You just have to make better decisions and give us an opportunity to run the ball I there. Coach is going to make those calls and I have to protect him with the calls. That's on me.
Did you feel like you did you everything you could in these last four games to state your case? To try and win games but also to show you can be the guy for this team.
I think the objective when I came back, with the broken shoulder, was to play and try to help my team to have a better chance to win games. It didn't go as well the first go around. For that point, it's just about getting better every day and getting better every game. When you look at it that way, not just myself, but I felt like our team got better every single week the past four games. I'm proud to be a part of this team. I'm proud I fight with these guys. My job was to get better and I think I did that.
Do you feel like you were on a squeezed amount of time to show them what you could do?
Without a doubt. I just talked to a lot of people, mentors that I have had over the years. I just didn't see it in a way that if I sat out the entire year that I could look back 10 years from now and say: because I sat out at the end of 2016, that's why I am standing here today. I don't think I have ever heard that story. I never heard that story of anyone who didn't take a chance, didn't take a risk and came away to be extremely successful. So the doctor said it was healed enough and I could have the chance to play. I felt like I owed it to my team and myself. 10 years from now, the guy standing before you guys, preferably, to do that.
Do you have a piece of mind about what your future is like with these guys?
I walked the locker-room afterwards and just told everybody, one on one, man to man that it was a pleasure to fight with them. That I was able to be out there and grind through the rest of the season when I wasn't. So I don't know what's going to happen. All I know is that I feel like I can help this team win games. We didn't get it done today. Every week I was able to get better, from my personal performance to just feel like Coach Jackson and Pep Hamilton that I have seen the game better than I ever had. I think that shows when I play.
How much would you like to come back here next year?
It would be awesome. It is the youngest team in the league, a lot of young guys. I was really proud with the way they fought in the rest of the season. No one in that locker-room is a loser. All these guys were the man some point in their life. It's our job to help them be the man in the NFL. So I want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of that growth. It is experiences like this to have the team stay together and fight all the way to the end and never give up. That's rare. That's really rare in this league. I want to be a part of the growth process in Cleveland.
