CAN HEAR CLEARWATER CALLING
As interesting as it is to try and decipher Shawn Andrews on Twitter, here are some excerpts from an interview he had today with 97.3-ESPN in Atlantic City:
ON FINDING OUT HE WAS RELEASE BY THE EAGLES:
"Sometimes when you expect things it doesn't hurt as much. It was just a matter of when. I knew it was going to happen, or had a feeling. I look at things, I'm a realist. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later because they went to their lengths with me."
ON THE LONG-TERM CONTRACT HE SIGNED:
"I was kind of the laughingstock around the NFL. Guys were like, 'Man, your deal is crappy.' ... I was looking for security vs. the long term. I wasn't trying to break the bank."
ON PEOPLE QUESTIONING HIS DESIRE:
"The doctor said that if you don't plan on playing football again I suggest you don't have surgery. And I had another surgery. I went through that whole thing. That let me know that, 'Hey, I still want to play football. I still want to be a Philadelphia Eagle.'"
ON EAGLES COACH ANDY REID:
"Since my whole depression situation, and building a relationship with Coach Reid outside of football, [it's] really given me a point of view of what kind of person he is away from football. It made me really respect him. He knows the situation, but I can't go into it, the times that he was really, really there is so sentimental that I can't speak enough about him. He called me this morning. I was like, 'Coach, I love you, man. I appreciate everything that you have done and the BS that you have had to put up with.'"
ON HIS DEPRESSION:
"I was never ashamed to talk about my depression. It brought a lot of hoopla on the positive side and the negative side and that in itself was a distraction to the whole organization. ... As a business it doesn't look good and they had to do what they had to do. I apologize from the bottom of my heart that I had to put an entire city, the fans, my teammates, everybody through what I put them through."
ON HIS CURRENT MENTAL STATE:
"It's as good as I've ever known. It's unforunate that I have to deal with that stigma for life, but the amount of people that I've been able to help from my situation, that supercedes anything anybody can say negative about Shawn Andrews."
ON HIS HEALTH AND GETTING BACK:
"I really stepped up my training in the last few weeks and I'm getting so much stronger. ... I'm ready to go to whoever is ready to take me and kick some butt again."
ON WHY HE THINKS HE WAS RELEASED NOW:
"I can speak for them, I've become a headache, if you will, and knowing that I'm getting better just isn't a guarantee. ... So they said, 'Hey, he's had an OK career, and could come back and kick some butt. But at the same time, we want to move in another direction. We want to go younger, fresher and with a guy that doesn't have a history of being hurt.'"
ON IF HE HAS HAD CONTACT WITH ANY OTHER TEAMS:
"No, I'm just trying to get right. ... It's not been the easiest thing for me, but at the same time I understand business."
ASKED IF HE BELIEVED THAT HE COULD STILL PLAY ON A PRO BOWL LEVEL:
"I don't know if I should say this on the air, but hell, yes. That's a definite for me. I don't like to be much about talking about it."
ON HOW LONG BEFORE HE'S BACK:
"I have no idea. Right now I'm unemployed. ... That's hard for me to think about. Hopefully, soon."
ON WHETHER HE HAD SPOKEN TO HIS BROTHER, STACY:
"I haven't talekd to him today. He's priobaly wondering what kind of mood I am in. He hasn't reached out, but that's cool."
