#128 - Don Thomas: Beyond Talent-What It Really Takes to Succeed in Football

Don , thanks so much for joining us today . Thanks for having

me , man , I appreciate it . Those were some of the highlights . Maybe just give us a quick rundown of your story , kind of a little bit of your background and what led you to where you're at today .

My dad worked for the Boy Scouts in New York City , so he commuted every day and you know my mom was super overprotective of me growing up as far as sports goes , and one of her things was just football , which just wasn't one that she was just keen on me playing .

And , um , you know , she taught in the city that we grew up in and she was a principal , and so one of her , one of her lines , was that she just didn't want to see the same people that she's teaching and have them see over out there on Saturdays as well .

And as I grew up , I found out that it was more of she was scared for me to play football , and by the time that she did give me the green light to play football , I was in high school .

In the high school I went to didn't have a football team and I was pretty good in basketball and baseball was my number one sport , and so that kind of was just like one of those things where I was just so immersed in baseball .

I just didn't care that we didn't have a football team and I just played baseball and basketball in high school and I got a couple of looks and smaller offers for baseball coming out of high school . But you know , baseball is a weird sport where it wasn't full scholarships and all that stuff .

Both my older sisters were in college and so my parents are like listen , it's still too expensive . And I applied to UConn . I got into UConn and they gave me a ton of money for being in state and you know all that good stuff . So I was like , well , uconn is a big school . I always want to go to a big school . It's an hour away from home .

You know , I'll take my shot at that and try to play baseball at UConn . And , uh , went to UConn as a regular student , try to walk onto the baseball team . It didn't work out and I just knew my athletic career wasn't over with . Just something in me was like you know , you're not done yet . There's no way you're not an athlete .

There's no way you're not gonna play an organized game ever again .

That's meaningful , you know , you're 18 years old , like it just wasn't it for me , like it wasn't like I was , I was not satisfied with it being over and I think that was like the biggest drive for me was was knowing that it wasn't going to be over and not accepting that as the final answer , and I wasn't going to let someone else take that for my future .

So you know , I became friends with a few of the football players on the team as this , as the my first semester went on . I met them and one day when their season was over , the whole team was in the gym playing basketball . I go man following Saturday open gym and I was in there and some of the other guys saw me .

They couldn't believe I went to school there at that size , right , I'm like 6'3" , 6'4" , 255 , 260 . That's like a guy on the team height and weight , right , and so , like you go to , you know , usually playing football , I'm like , well , I've never played football before , let alone try to play a division one level . It's kind of a tall task .

So , thought about it went home for um fall break and one of my crazy one of my old teammates in class , like that , went to high school with me . His older brother played at UConn and he was just finishing up . He was a fifth-year senior . He was graduating in December .

So that was his last season and me and him went and worked out like every day during Christmas break . He was back , he was done with school , he graduated and went back to school and just lifted , ran every single day .

And then one day I saw Coach Edsel outside running he was a head football coach at the time running on the track in the back of the student gym and I threw everything down to the guys I was living with . I'm about to go talk to them . I ran around the building , ran up on them . I was out of breath . I told him .

I was like hey , coach Edsel , my name is Don Thomas , you know , play football . I want to walk onto the football team . He kind of looked at me and he's like you go to school here , right , you're a current student at . I was like , yes , yes , he's like all right . He just kept looking at me .

He's like , all right , we'll come into the office , we'll , we'll try to get something worked out for you . At the time we didn't have the big facility that we have now , so there's a small office like connected to the student gym and he I guess he had told like the coaches hey , I ran into some big kid , um you know , coming off the track .

I told him to come in , and so

they all would pop their heads out . When I came in the office and , before you know it , like the linebackers , coach , defensive line coach , the coordinator and coach , that's all came out . They were talking to me . They didn't say they were gonna set you , set a workout up for me in a couple weeks . Come , you know , be here at this time .

I went , worked out , ran a couple 40s , did a couple drills and they said they let me walk onto the team and , um , I stayed up and that was like right before spring ball of my freshman year , so this school's almost out , it's like April right before the spring game .

And I stayed up on campus with one of my teammates that became a really good friend of mine , danny Lansana , linebacker . He played in the league for a little bit as well , and so I stayed on his couch and took a class and started working out training with the team . And make a long story short , that was kind of like the setup for it .

But you know , I was redshirted my sophomore year I got on the field only on kickoff return . My junior season , which was my redshirt sophomore season , and then I earned a scholarship , my true senior season , and then , a couple games into the season , my coach asked me to come back for a fifth season where he told me I'll be the starter at right guard .

Believe it or not , I played offensive line . A lot of people look at me now and I'm like 265 and I was 315 , 310 at the time . So I lost a ton of weight since I finished playing . But I came back , you know , I came back for that fifth season and , to be honest , quite honest , I'm like I'm on scholarship so my parents want to pay for it .

I'm not ready to go out in the real world yet and start working for a living yet . Like , let's prolong this for at least another half a year , see what happens . And I did that . And so I came back and I started all 12 games at right guard and it was kind of a whirlwind man . Before you know it I was , you know , first team all Big East .

I got a Hula Bowl invite , got east west shrine game invite . I got a combine invite . I was the number five rent guard . Uh in the in in the draft or the nation coming out uh , into the draft . I signed with an agent .

I was down and training down in atlanta getting ready for the combine and before you know it I'm running a 40 at the combine , like it was . Like you know , everything's like kind of like is this real pinched myself ? This has been a long dream .

Then I went to New England , played a ton , played in the Super Bowl here in Indianapolis in 2012, . And then signed a four-year deal in 2013 with the Colts and did three years of that deal . But I was battling . I tore my knee up pretty bad and was just battling , trying to get back on the field and finally decided that it was enough .

And eight years is nothing to hang my hat at , knowing the the story that it took for me to even get to that point where people are like man , I don't know how that happened , you didn't play football growing up like where , did like when , what , how ? So great ride . It was a great ride that's awesome .

, you know . You don't even know like , is this really going to work out ? You never played organized football up to that point . To begin with , what was the mindset that you think really helped you succeed from from that moment ?

just had to learn . And so I just literally was just like all right , when I get out to practice , I'm going to get in the back of the line every single time and when we go through these drills I'm going to watch the older guys watch the footwork , watch their hand placement , watch the pad level , watch all that .

And if coach says they did a good job , I'm going to try to replicate that when it's my turn to go . And if they didn't do a good job , I'm going to try not to do what he just yelled at that guy for . And I think that's how I learned . I had to learn the game . So I was a sponge , I was humble , right . I didn't have a big ego .

I knew deep down inside what my potential could be , because I truly honestly believe that and I didn't need to speak that to anybody . I didn't need to go out and tell anybody because the people were like yo , you're crazy , you're a walk-on Like . You know what the walk-on stipulation is , you know what that whole deal comes with . Like I was cool with that .

But I also knew what I could do . And I've always had that mindset of like when I'm on the field . Like I tell my kids all the time like when you step on the field , when you step on the grass , you step on the hardwood , when you step anywhere in the building , when you have other people that are your teammates you're competing against .

You need to understand . You have the mindset I'm the best person out here . There's nobody better than me , right ? Like you have that mindset you're going to play well , right , but there's a lot that goes along with that before you step on that field to have that confidence . But I knew I was doing everything I could .

I bust my ass , I ran as fast as I could . I was always the first to finish sprints . I was always lifting . I was , by junior year , going into my senior year , I was the strongest on the team . I had never lifted a weight in high school . I started lifting weights when I was 18 , when I got to college . You know what I'm saying .

So I really only had like three years of weight training to have like one of the heaviest bench press , the heaviest bench press on the team , probably top five . Top three or four squats on the team and then a top three or four you know power squats on the team and then a top three or four .

You know um , power clean on the team , right and so like we would do that , when you put all the numbers together , I was three , then I was two , then I became one , right and so like that was unheard of . So it's just always a mindset of like I'm competing . Every single time there's film , I'm watching it harder than you are . I'm studying it more .

When we got to lift weights , I'm putting that weight on you are . I'm studying it more . When we got to lift weights , I'm putting that weight on you . Catch me if you can . When we're running sprints , catch me if you can . You know what I'm saying . So like that alone was like I'm doing all this . So this hopefully translates to the field .

Now I just got to learn to play the game . You know what I'm saying . So I think that was my mindset .

And I was 19 years old when I knew that . But it was hard , man , it was hard , like my coach , my line coach at the time . He was relentless . He was hard . Like my coach , my line coach at the time . He was relentless , he was . You know , he didn't care if you're a walk-on or he didn't care if you're the starter .

But more so , the walk-ons got it worse . He was like quit , if you want , I don't care , it's one less guy I gotta worry about that I try to bring along right . And so he just . Everything I did was never good enough . Everything I did was bad . Like I was getting beat . I was to learn technique . I was trying to get my fundamentals right .

Like you know what I'm saying . There's times where I wanted to quit , but I knew that . Like that wasn't me anyway . Right , I'm not a quitter , like so . But there were . I had those moments . I tell , I tell guys all the time like you don't have , like we're human , you don't have those moments you doubt yourself , you know like you will .

But like what do you get out of quitting Cause ? Like this is life lessons right ? Like this is like if I'm gonna quit this , I'm gonna quit when anything gets hard in life . And so like I'm glad I stuck with it , I'm glad I didn't quit , I'm glad that I fought through all that adversity . Then I came out on top at the end .

And so I still worked and prepared like I was going to be the starter and they sprinkled me in a little bit .

Still , I knew that at any moment if one of those guys went down , I was the next to go in . So that was enough for me to be ready to go . But what really did it was , you know , coming out of that senior year . We went , we got through spring ball . Spring ball was easy . I was playing at a high level .

We had like our junior pro day and I ran that . We ran some 40s , did some stuff . And actually the director of football when I first went in the office , when coach Edsel told me to come to the office my freshman year in 2004 , that year , um , he had left UConn .

He was now the director of football , scouting for the , for the Cardinals at the time , don Corzine , and so he came back as one of the scouts to scout some of the guys and so I ran a 40 and I ran like a four eight something like it was crazy and I've always been able to run .

So I ran like this four eight and I was probably like 299 at the time , maybe just tipping 300 . And my mom forced me to go on spring break trips . She's like you're going to spring break this year . You never go . Whenever you come home , you always go back lift LA fitness Like you .

Whenever you come home , you always go back lift LA Fitness Like you're going . You need experience , have some fun in college . So , reluctantly , I went I'm getting on the plane flying from New York to Miami . Get on the plane and as I'm getting on the plane , my phone rings and it was Coach Corzine from the Cardinals . He was like hey , you ran a good 40 .

You look good blah , blah , blah . And I was like I appreciate that . And that's all it took for somebody to tell me that , somebody from the NFL level tell me that I may have a shot . And I just took that and ran with it . And then my coach , when I came back , we had spring ball , because this was right . Before spring ball .

We came back , we had spring ball and after spring ball my head coach said hey , listen , if you do everything right this year , you have a chance . We'll let the see where the chips fall . Let the chips fall where they may , was the exact words that he said to me , and that summer was just like hyper drive .

Like that summer I came back I said I'm going to be the biggest , fastest , strongest guard in the country . You don't know my name now . You will , by the end of the season , promise you that anybody that's on this schedule , any defensive tackle , anyone that's on the field with me , if I have to get my hands on you .

You got hell to pay Because I knew that I didn't have any film . I had zero film . So every play was an audition for me . So I knew that everything had to be perfect . I knew the level of play that I had to have . I couldn't take a playoff . I couldn't afford to be hurt . I couldn't have a bad game . A bad game was out of the question .

Still , you're going out and you know , busting it every single day , preparing with just a hope in the back of your mind what was , what was that like and how'd you handle that uncertainty ?

So if it's right now , it's workouts , right Like . All right , let me dominate these workouts . I'm down here training for the combine in Atlanta with , you know , 25 other offensive linemen . I got to stand out , I got to be the best one . I mean , these kids were from Clemson , virginia Tech . You know . You name it Bama . You know all the big schools here .

I am just a kid from , you know , from Connecticut . Walk on . You know . You know UConn , big East . We're just getting the program really people knowing about us . We had a little Cinderella season at 07 year . Can I compete at this level ?

It was a lot of questions that I that I that were in the back of my mind that I just had to shut up all the time and just go out there and know confidently like you can compete with anybody . You probably would have been at a bigger school , but you just didn't play football in high school , right ? So I think that's what I really held on to .

And you know what gave me that confidence was , yeah , we played some really good teams my senior year . Confidence was , yeah , we played some really good teams my senior year .

But when I went to the east west shrine game I'm playing the you know guys from Florida , you know guys from Texas , guys from all these super big programs and I'm competing against them if not beating them , we're dominating them against in these reps on one-on-one pass rush or team periods . I was like man , listen , let's go that's all I needed , yeah .

My senior year of college I drafted to Miami , right , so they went one at 15 . So they cleaned house brand new coaching staff , brand new front office . Bill Parcells was the VP , he's the one who drafted me . It was a whole new mindset and they were like , hey , you're going to run with the twos to start off this thing .

I'm like , all right , like twos , all right , the second team , fine , whatever . And it was just like the league is . I tell people all the time like it's faster , but it's not that much faster than high-level Division I football . What it is is your decision-making has to be faster .

You have to be precise on your , all your techniques and you have to read things very , very fast and dissect them very fast to make the right move , the right step , the right decision on the field . And that's what separates guys to be able to play at that next level . Because , yeah , we see athletic guys all the time .

You look at him like how is he not playing in the NFL ? How's he not playing in the NFL ? How is he not playing in the NBA ? How is he not ? But he can't make that split decision , that split-second decision , to be effective . And I think that's where a lot of guys struggle . So for me it was just over-preparing . I had to over-prepare .

I always kept that walk-on mentality when I got out there .

Before I got out there to watch film , know that , you know , know , like my opponent watch practice film from the day before , even learn my teammates and how they rush , how they , how they , you know , play against the run , how the linebackers read things , what tips them off , all those kinds of things , so that when I got out there the game could slow down ,

because now I'm prepared for that , how they're going to play it , what's the next move , what's the call ? When I hear this , what are they doing ? I think that's what helped me out .

So , like with that , and then Parcells , coach Parcells came to me and told me you know , the first day of training camp , once we got back , he was like listen , he was like there's no reason why you shouldn't be the starter . He told me this my rookie season , first day of training camp . He pulled me aside . We had a water break .

He's like we over to one-on-one pass rush . Next he was like , all you have to do is keep the guy in front of you . Nobody can beat you . You use your strength , you use , you , use your , your leverage , your long arms , no one can beat you . He's like , just keep him in front of you .

That's when you tell me something from like when someone that I know , I , I revere , you know trust what they're saying . Like if you tell me that you see something in me , right ? So like , that's all I need , right . So I went over to one-on-one pass rush . I was still going with the twos the first day .

When I got in I just saw him come on his golf cart . He whipped around behind the defense and he looked at me and he's like . He mouthed and he's like keep it . I . I just gave him a nine like that and I won two reps in a row and finished the day with the twos .

I came in the next day , second day , training camp , and they put the depth chart up on the dry erase board and I looked and it said 66 , starting that right guard . Go with the ones . Never took another . Never took a twos or threes rep ever again when I was in Miami .

Maybe the elevated pressure , the elevated expectation of , hey , I mean , this is the game that you grew up as a child watching , that everybody in the world grows up watching this game . There's not a higher stage in football . What was the pressure like in that moment ?

When you look at it from a standpoint of like I'm here at the Superbowl , right Like you , you you have that moment where you're in awe , but you also have to dial it back in to be able to focus . It's like you know , every kid has that moment in their backyard or , you know , in the middle of the street or with their friends .

Like you know , for the Super Bowl , no time left on the clock . You got one second left , one play to run . It's fourth down . You're down by five . You got to get a touchdown to win the game . You're just in it , man , but you got to perform . Like you know what I'm saying .

So it was a very surreal moment , a very surreal feeling , a very crazy time to look back on it , that I'm just like man . I can't believe I even was there to do that .

So it was just a cool experience , but it was just one of those that you never forget to think that just a few years ago , I was my first time ever even putting a helmet on to now , here we are , the biggest game in the world when it comes to football , american football and you're a very , very focal point of winning a football game .

So you know , kind of kind of moving on to to where you're at today , director of player development with with grand central sports management , when you , when you now see these athletes that are that are , you know , coming through , that are preparing to play at that next level in your mind , what's the biggest difference that you see mentally between the elite

players and the average ones ?

Right Like , does that guy have it or not ? Because a lot of guys can hide through just being talented . If you're talented enough and you can get through college , youth sports college , high school college , and then you can get there . But a lot of guys can get right here it's about getting to that next level . What does it take , right ?

And so it's kind of crazy . I just talked to Chris Evans this morning . Ben Davis product , michigan , he's in Cincinnati and we talked about it a little bit and it's , you know , it's not to , it's all a mindset .

Like he's got every athletic tool known to man . I wish I had his genetics blah , blah , blah , blah , blah . But why is he not there ? And it's a mindset . He just can't unlock what , what needs , what it needs to take to truly be a professional athlete . Your athleticism only gets you so far .

Like I said , the decision-making , your mental , how fast can you process ? Right , it's ? It's a chess game within a chess game , right , and it's like . It's like you have to make it to where the game is . Checkers , and I'm playing chess at all times , and that's when you become a professional ,

just to stay in the game . And so it's not easy for people to understand . I think what helped me out , what got me through it , was just my walk-on mentality . At even year six , seven , eight in the league , I still was like , hey , I gotta work , I gotta outwork this guy .

I don't care how much money you're paying me , yeah , because , guess what , it doesn't matter , because you can get rid of me tomorrow . This is football .

This ain't , you know , guaranteed I'm making a 53 , like , yeah , I'm the guy for you right now , but if I'm not performing , they will find someone else , and I think some guys just don't get that , and a problem with it is is a lot of guys would get put on pedestals growing up because they're so good , they're gifted , they're talented , but they don't understand

that , like everybody else has been put on that pedestal too , and the guys that are still there are the guys that figured out how to work harder than the next man , and so a lot of guys fall short because of that .

You know , here we are nine months later , year later , trying to decide in his mind do I now have what it takes ? Can I still trust this knee ? Can I still turn , open up and run the way that I need to ? Can I do I have what it takes ? Can I keep ? And he'd never . You know he's a great .

Here's a grown man who's never been put in this situation to really ask himself and be challenged on Do I have what it takes in your mind ?

Are there , are there skills like that that you is there , maybe like one or two things that you wish , man , if guys could just , at a younger level , learn how to do this , they would be so much more prepared at the highest level .

How bad do you want it ? How bad do you ? How , how like , how bad can you overcome these obstacles that are in front of you , because everybody's going to have obstacles ? How big are the obstacles ?

How assisted are you when you hit these obstacles is kind of what's going to determine the man that you're going to be as you progress in this sport , or female , in whatever sport you choose . But you've got to go through something first . It's important , it's imperative , right ? That's why , even with my son and my daughter , I let them fail . No-transcript .

Beautiful , I loved it . I didn't tell him that you got to . You got to . You got to understand . You're going to go through something . How bad do you want it ? How bad are you going to work harder to come back from this failure that happened ? You're that , this disappointment , so that doesn't happen again . When I , when I tore my knee up , I just had a .

I went through rehab every day . You're pushing . It's mental . There's days where you don't want to be doing rehab . You want to quit . You want to . It's too hard , it's not easy . You know it hurts . Do you trust the training staff ? Do you trust your body ?

But then when you finally get back out there now you got to play through that right , like it's there . Medical history shown that this is the rehab You're good , you've had enough scans . Well , you just got to go out there . You got to forget about it . You got to trust that it's there . You got to go play at that level that you know how to play at .

Also , learning that your body is somewhat limited Now it's not what it used to be . Coming back from this injury , you got to learn how to adjust and play with that , with inside of that right Like your , like your knee . You probably can't plant like that . You got to learn to plant a little bit differently , right . So it's just .

It's just all a learning process . But if you don't have any adversity before you hit those big obstacles , it's a lot tougher for you man and that's .

In that moment , in that situation , there are so many parents who their solution for that would be go call the coach , go send an email , go set up a meeting with the athletic director , figure out why this is wrong , what you're going to do to fix it . Rather than , man , what an opportunity for your son to realize you came up short .

So what are you going to do about it ? And how much harder are you going to work If you really want to go chase down , chase down this goal ? I love , I love that . That was the , that was the piece of advice that you had . So here you are .

You have the opportunity now to coach your own son and to kind of see this journey from the other side , from the coach perspective and there's certainly youth .

Sports now is certainly very different than when you and I played , and you know , obviously you didn't even play football in middle school or high school as you go on this journey kind of from the other side , from the coaching perspective . What are some of your thoughts on how today's athletes are preparing ?

They have zero rest time through a calendar year . They're doing something every single season . They're have a time . They have zero rest time through a calendar year . They're doing something every single season . They're playing a sport . They're not getting home to 9 , 10 o'clock from training , from doing this . At some point you got to rest , you got to regroup .

You got to be a kid too . You know you got to be because at 9 times out of 10 , you know professional sports . You take 10 , you take 10 people . Nine of us ain't making it . Maybe those 10 ain't making it . That's how finite it is .

So we lose sight of life in a , in a sense , right Like like , and I feel like a lot of kids could be better than what they are . But just mentally they're worn down . Physically they're worn down .

You know , their parents are riding them because they're living through their kids and , um , you know , I'm just one of those guys where it's like my son's got 19 games a year , padded football . That's all he's got . So , fbu , don't call me about bringing him down to these practices .

We're going and I don't care about naples , I don't care about , you know , like , the , the extra rankings and all that stuff . That means nothing . And so I think that a lot of it is like I think less is more , less is more when it comes to getting to the next level , because I can't have a burnt out athlete .

You're going to hit your ceiling junior year of high school . You got no potential to go because you're just burnt . And then what happens ? You don't want to play anymore , you don't want to do this , you don't want to do that , you don't work as hard . So now your potential is gone because you've given everything you had when you were 12 to 16 years old .

It's crazy . I think that's something that's important that I really want to stress to a lot of people , because I coach youth football , I coach middle school Like it's just a lot . So , like with these athletes , I feel like they just need to understand that , like you don't need to play a million games a year .

You need a rep , you need the reps , but we can get the reps through film study . We can get the reps through you know what I'm saying ? Running conditioning . We can get the reps through . You know what I'm saying ?

You just being a student of the game , however , it is right , but you can't be physically out there beating yourself down 12 months out of the year . It's crazy to me .

If it's something that they want to run down , I want to put them in a position where they're going to have the best chance of doing that . How do I decide when there's all these voices and there's all this ? You know , if you don't try out for this team and you don't make that team , then that means you can't do this and then you'll never do that .

How do I , how do I separate that noise of just ? You know , this is too much versus well , but you do actually still have to work hard and put in that time .

There is a true saying that less is more and you have to be selective on what you choose to put your child into . You have to look at who's instructing these teams , who's coaching these teams , what kind of organization is it ? Are the events that you're going to ? Are they organized ? Are they worthwhile for you to be involved with ?

You know all those things are factors . And then you also have to look at my child's played a ton of games , but has he truly learned from last season ? Has he gotten better ? Has he worked on those things that were weaknesses in his or her game from last year ? When did we take the time to actually fix those problems and go into next year ?

Are we just going to go from my school team to this organized travel team and we have a couple of practices a week and we're just playing four or five games , you know , on the weekends and we're traveling here , we're traveling there and we're playing against , quote unquote , the best competition in the country .

But did you take time to build those fundamentals , to really be dominant , to really get better ? Did you take the time to really work on your flexibility ? Did you take the time to work on your speed , your athleticism ? Because each year is a progression ? I had to get bigger , faster , stronger Once I got to the league . It just didn't stop .

When I got to the league , I had to get better every single year , and every year I took the time after the season to go back through every game , every snap that I played , get feedback from my coach right on my exit interview . What do I need to work on ? What do I need to get better at ? Okay , I need better ankle flexibility , all right .

Well , we're going to work on that this offseason . I need to get more explosive . We're going to work on that because , guess what , there's guys coming up behind you that will take your job . But when it comes to the youth level , you got to take a step back and think about okay , how am I really getting my child better ?

Am I just putting them in a whole bunch of stuff ? And that's going to be the road to success ? Well , guess what ? Everybody's a whole bunch of stuff at this point . Hey , I need to go back into the lab , I need to go back into the dungeon . Like I say , go back and go to work to fix what my inefficiencies were the season beforehand .

And I think parents need to understand , like you don't need to have your kid in every single . You can't go from you know padded football to seven on seven , back to padded in the spring to go back to a you know padded . Fall season is crazy . There's some . There's such things as called you know concussions there's . The body wears down .

You think these kids are invincible because they're growing , but over time , you know before you know it . Now you start seeing little things compiling to big things and you start seeing surgeries at earlier dates and you'll see a kid that's been freshman in college and he's already had two knee surgeries . Right , like it's becoming to be the workloads too much .

You got to be smart . You got to look at it from science , right , science . You got to go back and just be smart with your kid , because no one loves your kid , like you said , more than the parent does . Right , you think your kid's the best in the world , but sometimes you got to be realistic too , right , I love my .

I love my kids more than anybody ever will , but I also not going to throw them out there and say they're going to get better that way . We got to go back . We got to fix things first and we got to take steps to put that whole complete package together . So when it's time to go , you're the one who rises to the top .

And if you legitimately sat down with your high school position coach and you went , play by play , through every snap that you had that previous year shoot , even if you were , even if you weren't , a starter on the field , and you just said , hey , I want to watch all these cut ups , will you watch film with me ?

I mean , most high school football coaches would do backflips , like absolutely I'll watch film with you because you don't see that anymore .

Like because I knew that my way to prepare was to know in every possible situation , in whatever situation , what the outcome is , what are the ? And once I figured that out , I know there's only one to three things you can do in this situation . It's third and short . We're in the red zone . You're blitzing . You're a 65% blitz team .

Now what are your blitzes ? You're going to stunt the line . You're going to Blitz the guy . You're going to Blitz the wheel off the edge . You're a stunt team . So I expect TE with a Mike Blitz . You got double mug backers . You don't show that . I know those two guys are dropping out , so I'm just going to set to my three technique .

I'm not worried about him not making a call to the bat . Slide him to have him go , try to chip the three technique and not waste my time on a backer that dropped into coverage . Those are the things that make you a better player , because now you've eliminated the guessing game , you can go play fast and you know what's going to happen .

And I think that guys have to understand . You've got to watch a ton of film , you've got to know your opponent better than he knows himself , because that's the way that you're going to beat him . Right , it's not just physical , it's a mental game . It's so much more mental . I remember little giants when I was a kid .

When that came out and they said football is 80 mental , 20 physical . I'm like that doesn't make any sense . And then , as I started playing , I'm like yo , that's so true . Yeah , and it is . You got to have the physical part about it .

Right , you got to have , but you got to know what's about to happen too , and you got to know how to beat your guy before the ball snap . You know what I'm saying . That is the key to being a successful athlete , especially in football .

Being a veteran now I've been doing this for a while Tell me a little bit about how important is all of this , the mental toughness in terms of a team culture , not just an individual being able to achieve the goals that he or she has set for themselves .

But now we , collectively , are going to come together because nobody's winning a Super Bowl , national championship , state championship you fill in the blank without that . What do you think is most important when it comes to team culture ?

You know , guys have got to first off , it starts with the leader leader of the team , with the head coach . He's got to instill the culture into everybody that steps into that program , from every assistant coach to the trainers , to the , to the , to the interns , to every player , to the , to the . Everyone has to buy into the culture .

Once everyone buys into the culture , right Now we're all moving towards a common goal . Everybody has that . I don't care if it's the janitor cleaning the toilets . I can say this when I was in New England , I bought into the culture . The first day I walked into the building you could feel the culture change . I came from Detroit .

We were four and 12 , so we went 14 and two . That very next season , when I went to New England , right , the culture was different . Everybody that was in the locker room had the same common goal Nobody missed meetings , nobody skimped out on workouts . Nobody didn't get treatment when they needed treatment . No one cut corners . Everybody believed .

The coaches were in there at 5 o'clock in the morning . We're watching film

at 6.30 on the run game install and nobody complained . Brady was in the room with us going over the run checks against these different fronts and these . If we see this blitzes we're going to check out of this , how we're going to block it from the court . Everybody was in . So culture is so important in team building at these youth , youth ages .

This youth level is super important . With how much bonding time can I get with these kids ?

Just not in , you know , conditioning , strength conditioning , but outside of that , right , like I got to get these guys to become brothers , I got to get this group to become siblings so that we all believe in each other , so that we all can go out there and have each other's back at any given moment .

Yeah , I think that's the most important part about , you know , culture and winning and winning teams is is building and creating that and having the right people in there how much of that , or maybe what ?

He's the guy that these , these young men are or or young women are are around for a great percentage of the day once they're out of you know school , and they need someone else to look up to , to guide and lead them in the right direction . They have to believe in that person , that they know what they're doing and they have their best interest at heart .

You get to college , it's no different , but now you're coaching young , budding men and women that are going through different changes in life and you have to know how to adjust into , how to adapt to those .

Right , but you have to also know what you're talking about and really teach them the game , the fundamentals , to become a better player on the field , court , whatever it is , but also in life . Right , you're setting real , true life examples to where the aha moments come in , when they're 25 , 26 years old and they're faced with some adversity .

Remember what their coach told them , either from the youth level or from college . And then , when you get to the pro level , right , you got to be a guy that the BS is over with . Yeah , like these are adults now . These are legitimate adults that are either he's a fraud or he's real . He cares about me , but I also know that it is a business .

But how much is he going to take care of me and how much do I see everybody else believing in this man ? Right , so that I can fall in line and believe in him as well ? And so that's what you see .

It's hard sometimes where you see a coach that's trying to be a player's coach and there's coaches that are just like , hey , I'm going to coach you , right , this is how it's going to be . And then you have to find that . But the real true successful ones are the ones that find that fine line . You look at a Dan Campbell right , a guy that played .

Now he's a coach . But guys know that he knows what he's talking about . They believe in what he's talking about . When I was in New England with Belichick , like you knew that he knew his X's and O's , but you also knew that he was going to take care of you from a standpoint of a player as well , and he could relate to you .

He knew how , even though he was let's just call it like it is he was 60 something years old , old white guy that could talk to a 22 year old young black kid from the inner city . It just was what it was , but you respect him because was talking about and he was fair . I think fairness is . Another key point for coaching too is to be fair .

I'm not saying play time fair , I'm saying being truthful and honest with your players so they know the true expectations of what to expect when they're out there . Right , being fair , right , not having favorites . Who's going to go in there , who's going to perform ?

That's the guy who's going to play for me and that's who I know I can count on when it's time for the count on it . Look , he has . He's showing the results to make that a credible case .

You can do far more than you can even imagine . You got to believe it first and foremost , though , because guess what ? You're the only one that's going to believe it to be true , like everyone else is like yeah , prove it , show me , I know I can do it . Go out there and be the guy who you know you can be . Never doubt yourself .

If you know , if you think that you truly believe in your heart , you can do something . Go do it Right . Like in my career , like I feel like now , looking back on it now you know , I try to get my people like the kids I coach and my and my children to understand is like I did everything , day by day , right .

I just went out there and tried to perform as good as I can , as hard as I could , for what was given to me , but if I truly never doubted myself , like I don't know where my career could have been Like barring injury if I truly knew my potential and how good I was playing at the time , and really believing and trusting and understanding that you never know

what could happen . But just don't doubt yourself . We're all going to have those moments . We're not going to win every rep . Get back up and go harder the next time . Yeah , it's a learning experience , but don't doubt yourself though . You got this far for a reason . Just keep pushing , keep pushing .