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.

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 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.

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.

Once you've proved to [the players] that you can help them become better players, you've earned their respect. They respect if you've achieved at a high level in this league, but that's not what they respect you for as a coach.

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