- My dreams, you know, have changed now
since having a family, because it goes from, you know,
just being about us to now we have to think about,
you know, colleges and futures and, you know,
what they're gonna do.
"This is happiness.
It shines yellow.
Are you yellow right now?"
- Yeah.
- Are you yellow, honey?
The NFL didn't become a dream of mine
until my first year in college,
when I started, you know,
making plays against some of the best players in the league.
Once you get your contract, man,
it's like full-focus is now invested in myself.
Me being, you know, like a father and a husband,
like it inspires me to be always bettering yourself
every chance you can and just keep growing.
This is not the life that I'm just living.
This is the life that, you know,
I live for my whole family.
My brother was actually, like,
the first athletic person really considered in our family.
He's one of the guys that was gonna be the one
that we thought was gonna make it out for us.
I was about 11, 12 years old,
I was trying to cook, and I started a grease fire
because I fell asleep.
And my brother ended up coming out
and noticing that the kitchen was on fire,
and he called my name while I was sleeping on the couch.
And I just remember jumping off the couch
and running into the kitchen.
He ran in and grabbed the pot off the stove,
threw it in the sink, and when he did it,
you can just see a huge flame come up.
He ended up getting second-degree burns on his arm.
We was hoping that he'd still be able to play,
and we went to the coaches and stuff.
and they told him that he wasn't gonna be able to play
for the next year.
I felt, you know, at that time, I had messed him up,
and I said that, you know,
I was gonna be the one to help my family.
And, you know, I started playing football
my ninth grade year. I made a goal and I followed it.
- One, two, three....
- [All together.] Allen family!
- He was the first person I met in my life
that worked as hard as I did.
And, for me, that's been a true trait
that's continued on through us dating, our engagement,
and into our marriage and into our life.
And in marriage and in relationships
I think it's really important to recognize that like
you're never both gonna be high at the same time,
and you're never both gonna be low at the same time.
- My Achilles injury ended up coming
about three to four weeks after I got my contract.
I was just doing two shuffle steps
and it ended up being a run.
I felt like someone hit me in the back of my leg,
like it felt like a thump.
And then when I saw there was no one behind me,
I knew.
And then you just have like no feeling within the foot.
And it's just like a connection that was gone.
- When he was down last year with that injury,
it was really, truly the first time
that I was able to step into that role
to make sure that that wasn't a year of our life
that took us a step backwards,
but more so gave us the ability to move forward.
- It was the second or third day after,
you know, I tore my achilles,
I'm sitting on the couch and, you know,
I just got my leg propped up on a pillow.
So I'm like, "Man, I'm gonna just sit here
and binge-watch Netflix."
- You know like when the part of Netflix comes on
that says like, "Are you still there?
Are you still watching?"
We've never seen that in this house,
because like he's constantly working or building.
Like we're working towards bigger things.
So when that part of the screen came on on Netflix,
I remember thinking to myself like,
"Shoot, if he thinks that we're about to spend
this next year watching all these shows,
that's not what we're gonna do with this time."
- You know, Gracie,
she knew that I have a high standard of myself,
and that I would've been pretty upset with myself later on
if I had let those months go by.
- So the next day he woke up and he was like,
"I'm on Amazon and I'm looking at, you know,
these books about X, Y and Z.
I think I'm gonna order them and start reading."
Next thing you know, two days later
there's a box of like 15 books at the doorstep.
And it went from being like real-estate books,
to how to manage your wealth, to like....
There's a few like coaching bibles, they say.
- So, in the past, my dream was always
to make it to the NFL. You know, now
and in the future, I dream to be, you know, a coach
and maybe be an offensive coordinator -
one day be a head coach.
And then this is right here just like, you know,
the blueprints of the things that I want to keep
and, you know, one day bring to my team
and what not to bring to my team.
I love you.
- The thing, you know, about Ricardo is
he's very inquisitive.
He's got a thousand questions all the time.
Like his mind is always working and thinking,
and it goes really fast.
He's in the building really early,
and he's in the building really late,
working, preparing, studying.
If he's not working on his body, he's working on his mind,
and working on part of his game.
How are you?
- Good. - Good.
- Good to see you. - Good to see you, too.
- Happy all day.
- Yeah man, great all day.
- Nah, it ain't no such thing.
- No such thing for you.
- For a long time,
everything that I did, footballwise,
was for my brother.
Now, everything that I do is for the bettering of my family
and the future of my babies.
- So, what do you have to do?
- Close the field off as much as I can, high-low.
- Close the field!
When he closes the field, you....
- He went from taking something
that was completely out of his control and unfortunate,
and turning it into probably
one of the most productive years of his life.
There's literally no way
that he can't come back the same, if not better.
There's no end to where this story could go.