Once a week leading up to the 2008 NFL Draft, three-time Super Bowl winner Clayton Holmes will personally explain some of the pitfalls he fell into as a player: Money problems, inability to say "no," the gold diggers, the party culture, his own demons from childhood. As told to BC sportswriter James David Dickson. This is the final installment of the series.

This weekend the fortunes of at least 255 young men will, literally, change for the better. I just hope that some of them are a little wiser than I was back at age 22, 23. I've written about some of the What Ifs that still haunt me to this day, and tried to give advice to incoming NFL Rookies so they don't look back on their careers with any regrets.

What they tell you in school as a kid is true: actions - even small ones - have consequences - sometimes big ones.

I wish each of you a long and prosperous football career. Welcome to the NFL, rook.

A Family Guy

If I knew then what I know now about keeping a family while playing in the NFL, I would have chosen to go one way or the other, at least until I established myself as a player. I wanted to have both - a beautiful wife managing my home and crazy nights out with the guys. Rookie year is like sensory overload. You'd be a fool not to take advantage.

As I've written before, unless you're going to put a ring on her finger, let your college sweetheart go, now, so you can truly enjoy and truly focus on your rookie year. My failure to do that caused a lot of undue pain to someone I really loved - a great girl who, looking back, really deserved more than I could offer her. I thought that, when you become a man, you got married, and that's just how things went.

I didn't understand that relationships take work. They demand commitment, so you don't just leave at the first sign of trouble. Be honest with yourself about where you are and how quickly you want to start a family. Even if you play in this League for 12 years and retire at the age of 35, you'll still be a young man, with your whole life ahead of you.