While most kids put their head on pillows and dream of NFL stardom, Jordyn Brooks tackled them instead.
Each night before bed, Brooks, then a young boy in Dallas, gathered every pillow inside the small apartment he shared with three siblings and a single mother, lining them up as offensive linemen between the bed and the wall. While wearing his pads, no shirt, Brooks would work through formations, hitting the gaps to make imaginary NFL plays.
"The pillows were his opponents," said his mother, Lynn, with a laugh. "He did that every day, nonstop."
That apartment was one of five different homes Brooks lived in as a child, the family just feeling fortunate to have one.