I didn't play in the NFL, and I didn't play defensive line. But football, at the fundamental level, is football. It's about motivating people and getting the best out of them.

When teams win and play well, everyone benefits from a financial standpoint. But everyone takes pride in people being able to achieve at that level.

After several years in the league, when a player becomes a vested veteran in the NFL, they play under a different set of rules. For instance, if you cut a vested veteran mid-season and they don't get picked up by another team, you owe them the remainder of their salary.

I learned through apprenticeship. I was an assistant to a defensive coach, and I'm still learning.

More often than not, you find players seeing something that they can help another player with or reinforce something the coaches are seeing. Veterans do that regularly with younger players.

The best coaches I've been around, even older guys, are continually learning new ways to do things and new ways to teach.

A great deal of it is mental, the ability to learn within the game, to perform at a high level - often with injury - and to weather the ups and downs of an emotional game through a 16-game season. Also, there is the willingness to prepare in the offseason, the film room, to learn the scheme and execute without a lot of repetition - that's football character.