What do you do in the off-season when the checks aren't coming in? If you're Miami Dolphins defensive tackle A.J. Francis, you drive. For Uber, that is.
Although Francis is set to earn $510,000 in 2015, he doesn't start seeing those checks until July, so as a side hustle, he's been moonlighting as an Uber driver in Miami. And he's allowing people to join him as he chronicles his rides on his YouTube series Have Drive.
"I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket," Francis told the Associated Press. "Where I'm from, when you have a job, where are you when that job is over?"
But it seems as though Francis won't need Uber as a backup job when he leaves the NFL. He just completed his third semester for his master's degree in international security and economic policy and sees how Uber is thriving economically.
"Everywhere Uber is, it thrives," he said. "The resistance comes from taxi drivers who don't want to get beat out because they know they can't compete. Which is funny to me, because in no other aspect of American culture are you allowed to stifle capitalism."
Francis says he enjoys his time as an Uber driver because it gives him an opportunity to meet different people. He recently uploaded one video, which he said featured his favorite Uber passenger.
Another video refutes the ideology that straight and gay men can't be friends; it shows him chauffeuring around his best friend, who happens to be gay.
But is Francis a safe Uber driver? I know, from a recent experience in Washington, D.C., with a Uber driver who fell asleep and swerved off the road twice, that a lot of people have questioned the company's practices and overworked drivers.
"Just like I'm a world-class athlete, I'm a world-class driver," Francis stated. "If I wasn't 330 [pounds], Tony Stewart should watch out."