Ebron refuses to miss game for son's birth: 'He better come on the bye week'

The NFL may believe that "football is family," but Eric Ebron is separating the two.

The Detroit Lions tight end and his girlfriend are expecting their first child in late October, a boy they plan to name Oliver Dash.

But depending on Oliver's birthday, Ebron may have more important things to do than seeing his son enter the world.

"He better come on the bye week 'cause I told her I'm not missing that Steelers game," Ebron told Dave Birkett of Detroit Free Press. "She can hang that up."

Oliver's due date is October 28th - one day before the lions are scheduled to face the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday Night Football.

Several people have already encouraged Ebron to rethink his decision to value football over family, including former NFL guard Geoff Schwartz.

While Ebron may not be there for the first moments of his son's life, the 24-year-old is expecting big changes once he becomes a father.

"It's just different," said Ebron. "It just makes you look at a lot of things a lot differently.

"The way you go about every day, the way you spend your money. It counts for everything in life so it just puts a lot of things into perspective and some things like this, like playing football, what you're playing for now, it changes that and pretty much your attitude toward attacking every day and things like that. It's more motivation than it is pressure for me."