**'This Is My Purpose, My Assignment'**
That's only a prologue to how and why the player sometimes called the "Terminator" has been able to play 227 games (plus five more in the playoffs), missing only two games in his first 14 seasons ... average more than 1,000 snaps a season ... amass more than 100 tackles a year.
"I don't think it's 'why' I'm doing it to a high level. I think it's just a lot more of the 'how,' " he said. "For me, last year was a career high in tackles, and the year before that was a career high in tackles as well. My mindset is: How can I sprint through the finish line?"
Having studied the legends, Davis next step is turning to the greatness in his life. He has a deep spirituality that has sustained him over the years.
"I'm here doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing," he explained. "This is my purpose, this is my assignment. When you step into your purpose and your assignment, that comes with a lot of grace."
But grace is merely the start. Davis talks about the group of people he has involved in his corporation, keeping the engine operating at peak efficiency.
"I have a team that takes care of me religiously," he said, likening his 6-2, 248-pound frame to a racecar that comes off the track and goes right into the garage to be worked on for the next race. "Around the clock, they are constantly tinkering on my body to make sure its primed and ready to go."
And in large part that's because the game has changed. Davis is something of a bridge linebacker between the "gritty" old days he's studied and the "more high-tech, in-space" game of today and tomorrow.
"There's a lot more science, a lot more information," he said. "So trainers know how take care of players better, coaches know how to take care of player's better. It's not just a grind-you-down practice, a grind-you-down season. They know how to get high performance but also take care of the body."
**Preaching Balance to Extend Careers**
Besides a mixture of down in the mud vs. up in the stars, another duality speaks to him that enables him to temper his intensity off the field, where he does great works through his and his wife Tamela's Devoted Dreamers Foundation, to the locker room, where he shares his words and wisdom with younger players, to the field.
"The intensity is how I show up in my workouts, how I show up in practice, how I show up in the game," he said. "And it's not even a switch for me, it's a part of my character, that's who I am. I like to think of it very similar to the person I try to model my life after, which is Jesus, the lion and the lamb. Off the field, I'm just trying to serve people and it could seem very lambish. When you step up inside those lines, you see a different mode, and that's the lion. I think that's the blend."
However, the blend, whatever it takes, it takes a special man to do what Davis is doing. Of the six linebackers he mentioned above, all Pro Football Hall of Famers, their careers averaged just 11.7 seasons and 161 games. The only one who has matched Davis' longevity is the Ravens' Lewis, who played 17 seasons and 228 regular-season games before calling it a career after the 2012 season.
Davis is 10th all-time among NFL linebackers with his 227 games. Two games as a Jet and he'll move past Lewis into ninth. He is one of only three 'backers in the top-10 to have started his career in the new millennium, and he has started his career most recently, in 2012.
""I think that balance of performance and recovery extends careers." he said, passing on some more vital information to the younger players who want it. "I think anyone who desires to show up in that way, this won't be a phenomenon, it will be the norm. And I'm just one of the first ones doing it."