Revolutionizing Professional Sports: Brett Yaris on Behavior Analysis in the NFL

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Dive into the revolutionary world of professional sports through the lens of behavior analysis with my guest, Brett Yaris. Brett is breaking the mold by integrating Applied Behavior Analysis with NFL training methods. His unique path from special education to professional football coaching challenges traditional coaching methods and sparks new ways of thinking. In this episode, we'll take a look at Brett's career including the transition from special education to coaching NFL athletes.

This conversation is essential for anyone interested in how behavior analysis can be applied outside its usual settings. If you are interested in learning more about expanding your own career and pursuing your passion,  stay tuned for an upcoming webinar titled "The Path Less Taken: A Roadmap for Behavior Analysts Seeking New Avenues" where Dr. Nick Green and I unpack the behavioral principles that have not only supported our success but can also serve as a guide for others seeking to navigate their way to fulfilling careers outside the conventional applications of ABA. This webinar promises empowerment, offering strategies, insights, and the inspiration needed to take the plunge into new domains where behavior analysts can thrive, proving that with the right mindset and tools, the world truly is an expansive oyster waiting to be explored.

Football Behavior Newsletter
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Pick up a copy of the #1 bestseller: Adaptive Intelligence: The Evolution of Emotional Intelligence Through the Proven Power of Behavior Science

The Behavioral Toolbox  equips those charged with supporting behavior change in schools with practical applications of the science of human behavior for making a positive difference in the workplace. In this case, the classroom and school!

Be sure to subscribe to Dr. Paulie's Heart & Science YouTube channel for a variety of content related to behavior science and bringing out the best in yourself and others. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the thoughts and rants of a behavior
scientist show Hosted by WallStreet Journal in USA Today.
Best-selling author, dr Pauley.
Okay, welcome back to thethoughts and rants of behavior
scientists podcast.
I'm your host, dr Pauley, andI'm here with Brett Yaris.
Yeah, am I saying that, right,brett?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, yaris, yep.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
All right, good man Now.
So let me, I have to been inTrue, true transparency, which I
try to keep it as real andhonest as I can.
I don't know much about Brett.
I saw a post that he made onLinkedIn and I noted that he is
doing some stuff with ABA in NFLand thought, oh man, there's

(00:41):
actually Somebody else that's inthe world of professional
sports.
That's also behavior analyst,because I'm not.
I am unaware of other people andI'm guessing that they're,
they're somewhere doingsomething.
I am personally unaware of that.
I know that the people aredoing stuff in collegiate sports
and amateur sports and thatkind of stuff, so, but I'm sure
that there are others out therelike us.

(01:02):
I don't think it's very many,and I know you.
I'm guessing you might be justlike I might be the only one
that's been doing an MMA, youmight be the only one that's
doing in the NFL, and if thereare more, you know, hey, let's
get you on as well.
So when I saw that, I'm likethis is great, people need to
hear this and I want to find outmore.
And in another side note, thatis, there's a few people that we

(01:24):
clearly have in common.
I didn't even say your name.
I said, hey, I'm gonna beinterviewing somebody, break
somebody about the NFL and sayyour name and a couple of my
friends Right away.
So it was that bread.
Yeah, it was there.
And I said, well, why should Iintroduce you one of them's, dr

(01:45):
Nick Green.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah yeah, Nick Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, nick's cool man .
In fact, I need to put a littleplug here.
I told him I do this morning,because we are actually speaking
of this, we're gonna be doing awebinar called the path less
taken a roadmap for behavioranalysts seeking new avenues.
Unpack our own journey on howwe've ended up in our passion

(02:08):
Working with the science.
So I think you know what we'regonna talk about with you today.
It's gonna be a little bitabout that, like how you got
into this stuff.
So, anyways, welcome.
Welcome to the podcast, brother.
Glad to hear it.
Have you on, yeah notappreciate it.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
I'm really excited, like you said, you know it's, um
, you know it with a ba it's,it's rarefied air to find people
who have sort of diverted fromthe pipeline of special
education, pediatric service,and I think you know what.
What makes me maybe a littlebit unique even in that level,

(02:44):
is that I haven't fully movedaway from special education or
pediatric service.
You know, that's obviously howI got my start, so I discovered
the science, but for the lastdecade or so a little bit more
than that I've been working withprofessional football players
and that has led to severalthings that I'm sure we'll talk

(03:04):
about as we, as we go on here.
But yeah, it's definitely adifferent avenue and I always
like to to say this at theoutset excuse me of all the you
know, the podcast that I do orinterviews that I do, and I
assume a lot of people wholisten to you or BCBA is right,
like you know those four letters.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
take their podcast yes.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, they're, they're the coveted four letters
of the field.
But I, as it stands right now,and not a BCBA I Am.
I always say that I'm abehaviorist Because I have
foregone BCBA certification andthat's because of a you know and
I've talked to.
I'm sure we have like MattSequoria in common and this is

(03:44):
something I've talked with Mattabout a lot on his show.
You know, I have just a verydeep philosophical difference
with the way the board Treatsour field, treats our science,
and so I've chosen to not, tocontinue, to not continue with
with board certification.
That's a personal decision, youknow, for me, but I want people

(04:04):
to know that at the outsetbecause I know that Ethically,
referring to yourself as a BCBAwhen you're not is not good.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
But I appreciate it, man.
My passion is disseminating thescience, man.
So the science is just there,whether you're certified or not.
That sounds like it's a wholedifferent discussion.
Maybe you know we could get onthe podcast another time.
Talk about that.
But were you trained as abehavior analyst?
Did you go through formaleducation?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, but did all my course work at FIT, florida
Institute of Technology.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, good me too went through that.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
I've been masters in special education and the only
reason I got my masters inspecial education Was so that I
could pursue a BA.
I had gotten a job my first jobout of college, and my
bachelor's degree is in liberalstudies, which is like the adult
version of undeclared right.
So, you know, I I was justhoping to coach football, like
that's all I wanted to do.

(04:56):
I, my playing career was over.
I had played against future NFLplayers in high school and by
playing against them, knew thatthe NFL was not in my future,
had, you know, also some injuryissues and stuff, and so I just
really wanted to coach and Ididn't really know what to do
career-wise.

(05:16):
So when I got out of college,you know, I applied for a high
school coaching job inWestchester, new York,
westchester County, where it'sthe county like just north of
New York City for those who aregeographically inclined, unlike
myself and so when I applied forthat job I got it.
You know, you can come be anassistant football coach here
for one of the teams, but youhave to do something else for

(05:39):
the school.
You can't just be a footballcoach in Westchester County, you
have to do some other job forthe school that you're working
in, and so the only job they hadavailable at this point was a
one-to-one aid position for achild with autism, a middle
school student and I was like Iknow anything about autism.
I didn't know anything aboutspecial education or education,

(06:00):
but all I knew the way itsounded, the way it was sold to
me was to follow this kid aroundall day and then I can go coach
football and get paid for it.
Oh, like this is the easiestmoney I'm ever green back
principal man yes.
So, like you know, I'm thinkingthis is gonna be easy, it's
gonna be cake, you know.
But man, what a three weeks in.

(06:23):
I was ready to quit that threeweeks and I was ready to quit
the job because I Clearly didnot have any type of training
that was gonna Help me.
You know this, this student andthe students that were in this
self-contained program at thetime I've had a lot of
aggressive behaviors that I hadnever experienced in my life
before and there was just it wasjust a very volatile situation

(06:45):
that I just was like, wow, I'mnot built for this.
And there was a BCBA who wascontracted with the school
district, who came in and andbegan to introduce a BA to me.
She was car boned train, so alittle bit more, little bit
different than I think, whatwe're used to now when the way
students are trained now in a BA.
But it was fascinating to mebecause I was employing some of

(07:06):
these techniques and I wasfinding success.
I was going home less beaten upat the end of the day and I was
like, okay, I think this is it,I think this is what I want to
do.
And so I looked up like how doyou go into a BA.
How do you pursue that?
And you need a degree in it ora related field to pursue the
coursework.
And so I chose to get amaster's in special education

(07:28):
For the purposes of goingthrough to that.
So I did that and, yeah, I gotformally, did all my coursework
at FIT, did supervision for acouple years after that, because
I I actually ended upSerendipitously through the
process, I became the teacher inthat classroom.
That I was okay and I had acouple philosophical differences

(07:50):
with the way the public schooleducation works for special
education, and so I thought I'dgive my hand in the private
field and I worked at a privateschool for a couple years and
when that wasn't Fulfilling whatI thought was gonna be helpful,
I opened up my own, my own shop.
And this is actually a goodsegue into football, because

(08:14):
what I ended up deciding andfeeling was that, in both the
public and private sectors forspecial education, probably one
of the most beneficial serviceswe could provide in those
settings for individuals withspecial needs was physical
education.
Obviously, we know thestatistics about the the large
increase in sedentary behaviorin that population.

(08:34):
We know that there aremultiples more likely to develop
chronic illness.
That's preventable In a societythat's already multiples above
the rest of the world indevelopment chronic chronic
illness.
And I felt that, you know,seeing how physical education
was done for this population, Iwas like man, this sucks, like
we should be way better.
You know these kids come to gymclass and we're just walking in
circles around the gym.

(08:54):
Or they're 18 years old andthey're riding giant tricycles
and and not being taughtanything that's gonna help them
when they're 40, 45 50 years old, right like these lifelong
active living skills.
So I decided that I was goingto use a ba To not just work
with this population but treatmovement skills and movement

(09:15):
patterns the way we treat otherbehaviors and employ shaping and
conditioning techniques Toteach students how to not just
develop fitness routines but howto learn exercises, do them
safely, correctly, but also makethem less punishing, right and
love for you know conditioninggetting in shape and Working out

(09:38):
whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so you know, surely, intothat endeavor, right, that's
called the behavior movement.
That's the company that Istarted.
I ran into a high schoolfootball player, a senior who
was, who heard about what I wasdoing with special needs kids
but was, you know, experiencingsignificant back pain and knew

(10:01):
that I had a background infootball.
So he asked if I could watchhim do a workout and see if I
could assess any movementpattern deficiencies,
deficiencies he was having.
And long story short, becauseI've been talking already for a
while, that student ended upbecoming a premier college
football player who introducedme because of the development in

(10:22):
his football technique that weworked on, introduced me to his
teammates, all of which gotdrafted into the NFL.
Then word about me spread totheir NFL teammates and that's
how I got my foot in workingwith a lot of NFL players over
the last decade.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Okay, well, I actually want to talk to you all
fair about a couple of thingstoo, because it's got my mind
spinning on this stuff in a goodway.
So it's interesting because ourstories mirror, nick's stories
mirror, and that is.
A lot of people want to grab ajob in the thing that they want
to do with the science, but justa lot of people have not

(10:59):
pioneered this stuff yet.
But the great thing is that'sthe science of behavior.
So anywhere somebody's behavingwe can insert ourselves.
But just like myself, you hadto still have a job, a day job,
and do things afterwards Likeit's really unavoidable, I think
, until the science is justcommon language, where people

(11:22):
recognize the worth of it andpeople are being hired as NFL
behavior analysts etc.
Etc.
Whatever industry that we'refocused on.
But it just has to be the wayit is and it makes long days.
But I think the good news aboutis that that second half of

(11:42):
your day you're in your passion.
That's why I mentioned thepre-mech principle earlier.
This is your big reinforcerhere and it's going to lead to
hopefully invest, you do itright, you produce a valued
outcome and look what happens.
A lot of people are like and Iwas like this at first thing
well, nobody's listening to me,but you have to get them in
touch with reinforcement bottomline.

(12:03):
So you've got to get them tobehave well enough and long
enough where they produce somesort of reinforcement.
In my new book I call that theleading hat rights and
establishing operation.
Right, you've got to create awant.
We get the behavior moving.
And then there are differenthats.
We got to put on the traininghat, the coaching hat, the
managing hat, all in service ofgetting people to behave well
enough and long enough.
That's producing some sort ofpositive reinforcement for them.

(12:26):
So that's going to take over.
But you are also being pairedwith that positive reinforcement
because clearly you were, youhelped one.
You spread the word like checkout this dude Brett making a
difference in me, and like, look, we don't know how that's like
real dissemination If they startapplying those principles
within their own camp, their owntraining regiments,

(12:47):
understanding their own behaviora little bit more, putting on
the behavioral lens of thethings that they're doing.
That's very powerful, man.
But I got to think it was still.
It's still tiring in the momentright, when you're working all
day and doing stuff afterwards.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, it's a good point.
Tiring is such a good wordbecause there's a lot of modes
that getting tired takesthroughout this process.
Right, there's that physicalexhaustion of pushing yourself
for a lot of hours in a day,especially applying the science
in a physical way, right, withmovement, technique, things of

(13:24):
that sort.
But then there's that mentaldrain.
It's the.
You mentioned this, you know,when you were speaking before,
when you said you know there arepeople out there, they're just
not listening to me, right, thatconstant rejection is, you know
it may not be real rejection,right, it may be perceived
rejection, right, we're notgetting the immediate results
and so we perceive like it'sbeing rejected, when really it's

(13:46):
just you're laying thefoundation, right, the bright
lights right around the cornerthere.
Yeah, I keep pushing throughthat.
But yeah, it's tiring becausethose are, you're trying to do
something that no one else isdoing, and when you're doing
that, you're trying to changepreconceived notions.
And what you're really tryingto do is you're trying to change

(14:07):
established behavior insomebody else, right, when
somebody has, especially in afield that doesn't isn't
familiar with our science, right, so when you're pushing into
football, they've been doingthings the same way for a
century, right, there's 100years of established behavior
that you're not going to changeovernight.
And if you understand that, yougo into the process with that

(14:31):
understanding, then it becomes alittle less daunting because
you realize that every little Isay this a lot to my clients,
and I say this when I give talksthat the goal for us is never
perfection.
Right, perfection in this caseis like overnight people go, wow
, aba is the only way we shouldbe doing things, and then we're

(14:51):
going to completely move to this.
Now, right, that's perfection.
Perfection is unattainable.
It's not a thing that you'regoing to get.
The goal should always beprogress.
And if you are so prideful thatan inch of progress isn't
enough for you because you'rechasing a mile of progress, well
then you're going to miss outon what it takes to get to the

(15:13):
mile.
It takes an inch.
You got to go an inch Withshaping, that's it.
That's it.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's shaping If you look at that.
I agree with that 100%.
I'd like to say that you know,science doesn't give us all the
answers, but it helps us to findthe best ones.
Yeah, and so you know.
This is why it just it's sopowerful.
We should keep our lands on.
You know one of the things thatI address, I have one of my
books.
It's called Quick Wins.
I wrote it with Anika Kosserour second edition and it's

(15:38):
about that very thing.
It's about initiating changeand getting people in touch with
some sort of of reinforcement.
Organizationally, right, it'slike an organizational but
behavioral momentum, if you were.
You have to get people in touchwith some sort of reinforcement
and that initially is probablygoing to mean establishing
yourself as a reinforcer.
So you're an EO.
You know what I mean.
Like, hey, just give this a try,man, you know, find that one

(16:01):
thing you know in the fight game, you know it would be like it's
you know, the guy lands hispunch a little bit more or he
gets hit less.
Right, I want it to be.
You know it's positivereinforcement.
But that's setting up thepositive reinforcement, because
you know you're getting off yourstrikes by getting hit less.
It feels better.
Hey, you know there's all thesepositive things that come with

(16:22):
it, but we do have to get peoplein touch with it.
Stop talking about the scienceand all the great things they
can do, make it happen, you know, but find something small
because, to your point, you'renot going to make these big
changes.
You know it's like, you knowit's behavioral chaining, you
know, and it's it's, it'sshaping, and you know there are
a bunch of small things.
But if you highlight that pathto begin with and it becomes

(16:44):
predictable and people knowthey're moving towards that end
result, there's these series ofaccomplishments that occurs and
those serve as reinforcers to alarger goal.
And when they understand thepath, if you've done a great job
of explaining it, highlightingit, and they're beginning to
reflect on what they're doing,they're seeing that producing
outcome that's going to takeover man.
That's when it's going to.
You know, make all thedifference in any field at all.

(17:07):
I mean, still, the basicprinciples of behavior analysis
are still at the root of it.
It's the DNA of it.
It's the DNA of.
I mean, I think you are workingdirectly with, with players,
correct?
Am I correct in saying that?

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah, yeah.
So I mean there's I mean I do,I do a lot there's.
There's the players aspect andI and you know, as a spec roll,
we'll spend a lot of time onthat.
But you know, five years ago Ico-founded a media company and
my value add to to my, thepartnership group there was was
bringing this experience, notjust the experience of behavior

(17:45):
science, but I was the only onewho worked with NFL players.
I knew what they cared about, Iknew what motivated them, I
knew what got them to payattention to media, what they
needed reinforcers.
Exactly, and so you know, webuilt that to one of the bigger
football media companies outthere until it was purchased by
an even bigger fish.
And you know, now I havefootball behavior, which is the

(18:08):
brand that I'm doing now, whichis an analytics company that are
analytics based solely on ABA,precision, teaching, standard,
acceleration, charting, andthat's making you know some
headway.
So you know, the long answer isI am really trying to push this
into all areas of football, notjust direct technique training.

(18:29):
But yes, the beginning of thatwas working with players,
finding success with that andthen lending that success to new
areas.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, well, I was thinking.
The reason why because I wantto hear more about your company,
what you're doing with theanalytics there and the
precision teaching and thepredictive stuff is that when
you start working with coachesnow you, now we got our OBM lens
on and we're reallydisseminating the science and
these principles and now we getmassive changes across an entire

(18:59):
team, especially if we startkind of going up the chart right
up to leadership.
You know, you know I thinkabout these skills again, these
four hats and how, like, everyperson needs to be wearing these
different four hats.
If you are trying to improvethe performance of anybody at
any level, whether you're theCEO of the company or whatever
it's called in the NFL, goingdown to you know the each level

(19:22):
of the coaches, they're still.
You're still trying to get thebest out of the people you're
supporting, and so this requiresunderstanding how to wear these
different, these four hats, andthey're these four hats are
response, functional responseclasses, and it's all grounded
in, you know, the four termcontingency.
It's everything that we do.
So our science can just be usedat the molecular level and the

(19:43):
molar level.
Man, we could do selfindividually, we could shape up
that nuance, as you very wellknow, at this level of sports
and professional sports, it'sthe nuance.
It's that small behavior, it'sthat slight pivot with the back
foot, it's the elbow being justso here instead of there.
All these small changes havemassive impact at when you are

(20:04):
functioning at this level.
I mean, you think aboutsprinters.
You know, if they shave off atenth of a second, that's the
difference between winning andlosing.
You know, people are like atenth of a second, that's
nothing, that's huge.
And sprinting, you know.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
I mean it's the.
That's the same measurement inthe NFL, a tenth of a second.
I mean, the first player I wasworking with was an offensive
lineman, the high school playerwho went to the NFL when we
began to work his technique.
You know he was going to go toTCU, texas Christian University,
at the time of a big, big 12,you know top big 12 school and
you know, looking at his highschool tape, I noticed that when

(20:36):
he was getting out of hisdancing for the uninitiated in
football you're missing out onthe greatest game that this
country offers.
But for the uninitiated infootball, the the offensive
tackle is is on the end of theoffensive line.
Who protects the quarterback?
Right, he's stopping thequarterback from getting sacked,
getting hit and all of thosethings.
And when he's, you know he'sgot to move backwards, while

(20:59):
there are 250 to 280 pound menrunning through him, running
forwards right.
And I noticed in his tape whenhe was trying to get out of his
stance backwards, he was poppingup vertically, then coming back
on a lateral plane right.
And so what we did is we shapedthat vertical pop up out of his
stance and TCU wanted toredshirt him right, they wanted

(21:22):
him to basically sit on thebench for a year and develop.
But we worked all thatoffseason on refining his
technique because they thoughthe was too raw, right?
So we refine his technique thatentire offseason and when he
showed up, by the way, this isyou working.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Are you working just for free with him Because you
love for passion of the game?

Speaker 2 (21:38):
At this point.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yes, it was.
I just want people to hear thislike it requires an investment
At this point.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
it was free, it was a yeah, it was a time investment,
but it was something I just.
I felt that there was a, ifthis worked right, if I pulled
this off, then I thought, man,there is a huge opportunity here
and this is going to be my life, this is going to be my lab
right, you have a vision.
And so he he ends up showing upto campus as a true freshman at

(22:07):
TCU, and his technique hadchanged so dramatically that
they decided not to redshirt him.
And he was actually going to bewhat's called the swing tackle,
which is, if any of the tacklesgo down the starters he's the
first one off the bench,regardless of what side it is,
and that was a big thing.
Then he he comes home after hisfreshman year and we do more

(22:29):
work even more talk about amajor reinforcer for yeah.
So he's now.
He's motivated, right.
He wants to come back and getthis work in.
So we do all this work and hegoes back as a sophomore and all
of a sudden he is beating thesejunior and senior defensive
linemen who were killing him theyear before in practice, right,

(22:49):
and these are guys, by the way,who end up getting drafted in
the NFL.
Ben Banagu gets drafted to theIndianapolis Colts, lj Collier
gets drafted first round to theSeattle Seahawks.
So these are guys, these are,these are real dudes.
He's going against the TCU inpractice.
And again, speaking aboutreinforcers, because they're now
getting beat by a guy they werekilling Ben and LJ said to say

(23:11):
to him they go hey, what did youdo in this?
Why are you so much better?
Like what's going on here?
And he tells them he goes hey,I work with this guy, he's got
this different approach to how,how we train technique and boom,
those guys jump on board, right.
So it's a reinforcer for them,even though they're not directly
experiencing you know, they'renot directly experiencing the

(23:32):
the change in their own behavior.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Well, teo for them.
They want, they're going towant to do, but they're seeing
this guy doing like let me jumpon it.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Exactly so.
And then it just, it justrolled from there.
They got drafted, you know,they told their agents about me,
their agents told their otherclients about me and it just
snowballed, you know, from there.
And that same tackle, just toput a pin on this, this
particular you know story, thiscase, what I was, what I became
most known for.
And you, you talk aboutspeaking with the coaches and

(24:01):
working with the coaches,because you also got to
establish for them.
Right, because, like a teamlike the Kansas City Chiefs, who
this guy ended up gettingdrafted to and playing for, who
plays for them now, the KansasCity Chiefs, they have a way of
doing things.
Everyone's got to remember that.
Right, the NFL is not asingular universe.
It's a multiverse of madness of32 teams.

(24:22):
And each coach has their own wayof teaching.
Even if it's offensive lineplay, their offensive line guy
does it this way, where the NewYork Giants do it in a different
way, and so I got to work withthat coach and make sure that
coach trusts that I'm going tomake you know this guy, the best
Kansas City Chief that there is.
So, COVID happens in 2020.

(24:44):
This happens to be the year hegets drafted.
This Lucas Nyang, by the way,is his name, for I know I keep
saying this guy, Lucas Nyang ishis name.
He gets drafted in a TCU in2020, the year of the pandemic
right, and everything gets puton hold and the NFL offers
players the ability to opt outfor that year.
They won't lose a year of theircontract and all these things,

(25:07):
but they don't have to play forthat year until everyone feels
safe.
And Lucas opted out.
He decided to opt out hisrookie year, taking a big risk.
He gets drafted to the KansasCity Chiefs.
This is the year immediatelyfollowing them being in the
Super Bowl and losing to theTampa Bay Buccaneers because the
offensive line is not playingwell right.
So, like he's poised to go makea big difference and he decides

(25:32):
to opt out, and he made thatdecision.
At the time a study in the Big10 had come out that offensive
linemen in the Big 10 teams weresuffering heart complications
from COVID.
To be clear, not the vaccineCOVID.
They were suffering heartcomplications from COVID and
this is very early in thepandemic.
And so Lucas, being in thatplaying an offensive line

(25:55):
position having a pre medicalcondition, decides it's not
worth the risk right now.
He wants to opt out till bettersafeguards are in place.
So for an entire calendar yearI'm the only person who worked
with him.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Oh my.
We were talking about isolatinga variable.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, we.
I worked with the Kansas CityChiefs coaches to understand.
I want to know their practiceschedule because we were going
to keep to that schedule.
Okay, I wanted to recreate theenvironment as best I could for
him, but we worked that entireyear and he shows up the next
year.
Now he gets drafted, takes anentire year off, shows up the
next year and he's the startingright tackle on a Super Bowl

(26:37):
team.
Okay, I'm telling you,unfortunately, until he gets
hurt.
He ruptured his patellar tendonlate in that season.
But the point is is that that isthe thing that really kind of
pushed forward when we talkedabout reinforcers, coaches and
players and agency that this guytakes a whole year away from
the NFL and then shows back upto become a starter on a Super

(27:00):
Bowl team.
They go how did you do that?
Oh, I was with this guy whouses behavior science to train
me and that's why I was able tomaintain a lot of this stuff
that we worked on.
So that was a big deal andthere's a whole.
You know we did a YouTubeseries on it, by the way, you
can see a lot of the work I didwith him on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, make sure, when we're done, just for listeners,
send me those links andanything that you have and I'll
make sure I drop in the shownotes.
So I want to go back in twothings.
One is that some people wouldthink, well, I'm not an expert
in football.
Right Now I've actually goneout and spoken to people

(27:38):
lacrosse coaches.
I've just got done speaking,doing a.
I do.
I do keynotes and talkseverywhere to financial advisors
.
I know nothing about either, butI do know the science of human
behavior, and so, as a behavioranalyst, you don't always have
to be a content expert.
You find out what results theywant and what behaviors are

(28:02):
supposed to be being engaged,and then you can help them get
more of these behaviors overhere and less of those behaviors
over there.
So I want to make it clear thatyou don't have to be a football
expert to make a difference.
But it sounds like you also hadthat content knowledge.
You had an expertise in that,so you could actually help to
shape this guy's behavior upbased on what you knew he should

(28:22):
be doing versus what he shouldbe doing.
Am I correct in saying that?

Speaker 2 (28:25):
I would.
I would say I mean, yeah,absolutely on the right, the
right path there, but I wouldsay I didn't have content
knowledge at that time.
I had content passion, but Iloved football.
Right, I was a big fan of thegame.
I played it at a high schoollevel, which is in no way
preparation for understandingthe nfl style of play, um, but I

(28:47):
wouldn't say that I was anexpert at it, to your point.
Right, I also coached lacrosseand played lacrosse.
I would not consider myself alacrosse expert, um, but when
this, this particular player,got in front of me at that time,
um, it wasn't even footballthat I was helping him with, it
was how to do squats better, sohe didn't have back pain.
Uh, right, it just the the.

(29:08):
To your point, they bring your,your clients, your, your
audience, if you want to callthem that.
I I hate the word client, bythe way, I know I.
I think I'm weird in that way.
They just seem so.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
I say learner, the learner yeah learner.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
I love that right, so you know they're gonna bring
their challenges to you.
That's when you begin toinvestigate.
That's when you start to become, or want to become, an expert
in their challenge.
I didn't become an nfl expert,I would say now, working with
different players at differentpositions on different teams.
Um, and then what I've done inthe last five or six years in

(29:44):
the, in the football, the largerfootball landscape, in the, in
the media space.
I'm much more of a footballexpert than I was when I started
, but what I was an expert inwhen I started was Lucas Nyang's
problems.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
That's what I became well said man, well said, and
that's what.
That's the beauty of behavioranalysis.
If I go into an organization orat school, they have, they have
their own problems and there'sa reason for those problems and
although they might have somesimilar Reasons, you know some
similar root causes.
Um, we still have to refine theintervention based on what the
needs of that organization are,the needs of that team, and it's

(30:21):
still boiling down to thebehaviors of the individuals to
figure out what the pivotalbehaviors are that we can work
on, behaviors that are going toget them in touch with their
reinforcers.
That becomes really critical.
So, uh, it's powerful.
You said that.
I will also say that, as a, as aboxing coach, as a mixed
martial arts striking coach andspecialist, um, I evolved, of

(30:41):
course, uh, my, um, my approachto coaching and what I was
focusing on.
But I studied, I went back andstudied like Mike Tyson style
and a very homestyle andMuhammad Ali and and different,
you know, because I focused onthe striking.
I figured out those nuances,because it just comes down to
behavior, and then I tried themout myself.
You know, um, testing them outin the cajun ring.

(31:02):
I took some extra beatingsbecause of that, because they
weren't actually Pardon me, butI figured out what was working
and I was able to Train peoplebased on their genetic makeup,
for example, like the short guys.
Hey, this is gonna this isgonna get you in touch with more
reinforcers.
You know, then, doing it thisway because this is better for
long guys, it'd be like, youknow, you train in the center
different than you're gonna betraining the linebacker.
You know, I don't know what'sthat.

(31:23):
Yeah, so, uh, so I'm wondering I, without going into too much
detail, because for me A lot ofpeople think, oh well, you know
there's, we got clickers out,we're doing all this.
I use just the basic behaviorprinciples, uh, and I wish I had
metrics for everything.
I had some metrics that I use,but there's stuff with
biofeedback that were important.
Um, I'm probably the height ofwhat I did was with a with a

(31:46):
good friend of mine, dr Alexadmins, where we broke down
Every round into 10 secondintervals and, uh, I had the
fighter doing a certaincombination and, man, I got so
much biofeedback on it.
I could see the combinationsthat were taxing him more than
others, right, so this would bethe almost a measure of fluency,
like they're all say, fivepunch combinations.

(32:07):
But why is this one Is heartrate elevating here based?
The other one we could see, Icould see how much movement he
was doing.
It's such a, how many times hewas getting hit.
We count that he would do it totake a look at it, count his
own behaviors in a manner reallyHelped.
Um, but some of the stuff isjust like you know, I'm trying
to help them see contrast Indoing it this way versus that

(32:27):
way.
Right, they need to recognizethey're getting hit less.
Now, having cold hard data, itaccelerates it big time.
I have my guys do film study butit's not just looking at stuff.
I discriminate certainbehaviors, I break it down to
those intervals and I have itscore themselves.
And I've had guys who have beenlike there's certain things
like in the fight game I say,keep your hands up.
Well, not necessarily, look atMuhammad Ali, roy Jones Jr.

(32:50):
You know the james tony lairhomes.
There's a number of fightersthat kept their hands down and
they use distance as they'rebuilt in defense.
So but if you've been to yourpoint conditioned to think about
I always have to have my handsup.
I need for my fighter torecognize the difference.
So I'd have him count how manytimes he was hit with his hands

(33:11):
were up versus how many times hewas hit when his hands were in
the position I want to, and Ihad been telling him for a year
to change it.
When I had him study the videoand did the interval, it changed
on a dime.
So the power of getting somesort of graphic feedback, some
visual analysis, having themrecognize A and b right, very,
very powerful.
But I'm wondering what are acouple of the key things,

(33:32):
without going into too muchdetail, man, because I really
want to go on to your next, youknow your next venture and hear
about that, but what are thecouple key things that you've
done with Working directly withthe athlete that are kind of
grounded in some of the behaviorprinciples?

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah.
So a lot of um.
What I've tried to do is is tryto best replicate the
environment that I know they'regoing to be in either on a
practice or a sunday, and I willsay I have the benefit of, or
had the benefit of Of age.
I'm still relatively youngwhere I'm holding man.
Uh, right now I'm 34.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Okay, look good, dude , you got a baby.
Face man.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
I shame for you.
So the uh, but you know I, so II actually put myself a lot in
the drills because you talk alot about the, the bio feedback,
right, or the physiologicalresponse and and in contact
sports, collision sports likefootball, I'm combat sports like
MMA and boxing Um, what theyfeel is going to be Really

(34:35):
reinforcing compared to what youtell them right, and I would
say and you illustrated this, Ithink, beautifully is like it's
what they feel, then what theysee Right, whether it's in film,
study or wherever else and thenwhat you tell them right, and
hopefully, what they feel andwhat they see marries to what
you've been telling them, andthat's where you get this great
Synergy.
But you'll see it, if you watchthat youtube series, you'll see

(34:56):
I'm in the drill, I'm a passrusher.
I'm in the drill, I am going,I'm getting my ass kicked, but I
am in there, uh, you knowreally, really pushing him as a
pass rusher, so he can feel thedifference between you know, hey
, I am going to use a swim moveon you, right, and then on this
next rep, I'm going to use a, aspin move, and you got to feel

(35:17):
what that difference is.
So you know how to react.
You know how to respond becausethat's what we worked on a lot
was latency.
Decreasing latency right, forI'm sure everyone knows this if
you're listening to this podcast.
But right, latency is that that, that time difference between
the stimulus appearing and yourresponse to it.
Right, and a lot in football.

(35:38):
You need that latency to beweighed down.
You got to see it and reactinstantly.
We talked about the tenth of asecond being this, this big
differentiator.
And so one of the things Iwould do to work on latency is I
would do what's called a freefor all drill.
We would.
We would drill these different.
You know, uh, move, pass, rush,moves, rip, swim, spin, bull,

(35:59):
all these different things.
And then I would say, okay,we're gonna do a free for all.
You have no idea what's coming.
I'm not gonna tell you.
We're gonna do five reps in arow.
Each one is gonna be different.
It might be all five of thesame thing.
You have no idea.
It's a free generalizationfolks.
Absolutely.
And then what we would do is wewould look and say, okay, did
he respond correctly to the, tothe move?

(36:21):
We would do it.
This is all, but all of asudden, all on the youtube
series you can see, I'm not just, you know bs, and you hear on
this um.
The other thing I would do is Iwould physically, I would add
what what I would call physicalenvironmental changes, um,
beyond just myself being in thedrill.
So when we worked getting up,uh, removing that vertical
pop-up from his stance, I wouldput in, okay, a Um, like I would

(36:47):
hold like a bar or a pad overhis shoulder and if that
shoulder hit the pad immediatelywe would stop and start the rep
over um.
So a lot of environmental andthen shaping that right and then
so the bag would start out highand then I'd come a little bit
lower and come a little bitlower and shaping, I would say,
is like the biggest Techniquethat we would use.
I did a little bit of tagteaching um a little bit, and I

(37:10):
probably Modified it to ourneeds a little bit.
Um, you know, using a clickeror or an audio Sort of cue as to
whether or not a response wascorrect or not, um, but what I
would do is I would use thewhistle, because the whistle is
something that he hears a lot inthe football environment.
Right, coaches, wraps, they allblow whistles to signal the end
or start of something.
So I tried my best to Reallyfocus on what the environment

(37:34):
for him was going to be like inthe matters that, in the moments
that mattered for hisperformance, and I tried my best
to replicate that In thesessions that manipulated to our
advantage.
So not just shaping hisbehavior but shaping the
environment To bring out whatwas going to be the best, you
know, performing for him.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
And I know the other guys that we work with.
So I'm going to come back to myhats now, and I have, uh, what
you did is very similar whatI've done in MMA.
I mean, still, it's, of course,is going to be, if we've had
success, it was grounded inbehavior principles.
And so, uh, using just the hatillustration of these four hats,
um, having the leading hat on,you had to create a want for him
to want to engage in that stuff, right, uh?

(38:12):
And so, uh, I don't know, hemight have been in a state of
deprivation for something he waslosing, you know.
So there's already that.
And he said, hey, we could dothis stuff, you're getting moved
in the right direction, but nowyou have to engage in the
training hat.
You have to, you have to makesure that you're equipping him
with the right skills Right, sohe has a vision of what he wants
to be.
Now you're building the skillsright, one skill at a time,
whatever it is, breaking thatskill down to behavior.

(38:34):
Here's where the rubber meetsthe road and the lines with what
, the things that you're talkingabout, and I'm proud that my
colleague, dr Nick Wedley, and Ikind of coined this
functionally.
So we go from the training hatto the coaching hat.
People forget about this.
They don't even differentiatethis, right, but within the
science, we can differentiate it.
Training is about skillacquisition.

(38:55):
Coaching is about supporting ageneration of learned skills
into the natural environment.
Right, and one of the mostpowerful ways you can do this is
through simulations.
What you're talking about issimulations, and in my world,
simulations are sparring, andthis is what's often missing in
every industry.
Right, people are trained, theyget theory, they might even
have good training, behaviorskills training.

(39:16):
My fighter might look greatoutside of the cage or ring.
I drop in the ring.
They're going to take a beatingbecause those responses got to
become automatic and I have tomake sure I control the
variables that are being thrownat them and make sure that I'm
getting him in touch with her,in touch with some sort of
reinforcement, right.
So now they can respond tothese dynamic variables and I
start to layer back in right, Istart to fade back in all the

(39:37):
other variables.
So at first they're justslipping one jab, right, and
we're doing that.
30% and the 40% and 50%.
Pretty soon they're fluent withslipping the jab.
Now it's the two, right, we'redoing it with each punch, then I
start to make it the one, two,right, then it's the two, three,
and then we're starting togeneralize all this stuff and
pretty soon they're able to slipthese punches effectively back.
I got to make sure that they gotthe body mechanics best and

(40:00):
then the final piece is themanaging hat that I call it, and
this is about maintenance.
Right, so we get these skills,we generalize them, but now we
need these skills to maintain,and this is like we do it in
your system, or training is, andthis is getting them to take,
you know, evaluate their ownperformance and see how well
they're doing versus.
You know, here's what I shouldbe doing, here's what I was

(40:20):
doing.
Am I doing those things andhaving a system for that
happening?
So it seems like we're engagingin a lot of the same type of
approaches.
I think in our own field,simulations, right of behavior
analysis, are missing way toomuch theory.
We need a theory because it'sthe science, right.
So I'm not knocking that pieceof it, but we need simulations
and we need it through, probablylike gamification or some way

(40:40):
where people can take theconcept of positive
reinforcement and apply it tospecial needs.
They can apply it in sports,like somehow you and I weren't
conditioned to think about itthis way.
We're like I was surrounded bya bunch of behavior analysts.
I didn't go to.
I didn't go to the universityat first.
I ended up going back to FITmany years later because, god
bless them, dr Jose MartinezDiaz gave me a scholarship back,

(41:03):
and how can I refuse?
I took all my coursework overand did it and so, but I could
see even going back through it,like all the coursework are.
You're being provided examplesthat are about you know,
everything's at the mid-elect orlevel.
A lot of it's in special needspopulations, and so people
aren't given the chance to thinkabout how you apply this in
other settings.

(41:24):
I call it behavior myopia,right, when we're only thinking
about it here and not thinkingabout like the principles are
always the same and so peopleare kind of stuck in the matrix
and I'd love to kind of breakthem out Then in my discussion.
I think differently, which youare doing that.
But, by the way, how did you dothat?
Why did you think differentlythan the average person?
I've got my own thoughts I justmentioned by.

(41:45):
Like, what got you out ofthinking about just using the
science here where you could useit elsewhere For me?
I just thought I didn't go readresearch.
I thought, wait a second, I'm abehavior analyst and this is
behavior.
Let me start looking at whatI'm doing and why it's working
and then, when I start doingthat, I also figure out why some
things weren't working.
And this is how I got came upwith the concept of the

(42:06):
generalization skills and, likeI got to put on my coaching hat
and create this environment sothose skills grow up and they
can work in the real world whenthe real fight comes.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, I would.
I would say that along the waythere were maybe a couple of
things that pushed me evenfurther into it, where maybe at
the beginning I wasn't thinkingabout sports I definitely wasn't
thinking about sports but a fewthings that were said or taught
in the course of the journey.
Right, we're like man.

(42:34):
What if I did this over here?
And the first thing being thefirst time I heard the
definition of behavior aseverything a living thing does,
and that stuck to me because Iwas like, wow, a living thing.
I'm here because I'm workingwith these kids with autism and
that's why I'm trying to learnthe science a little bit better.

(42:55):
But you didn't say everythingan autistic person does.
You said behaviors, everythinga living thing does, and that
that stuck with me.
So that probably was the firstlike, even subconsciously, just
having me think you knowotherwise.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Just could be by anywhere.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah.
And then throughout the courseof the, the, the coursework I,
in the Cooper Herron book okay,the white Bible there was a a
figure about free throw fluencyin women's college basketball.
In fact it's the only non, nonpediatric or special needs

(43:32):
example in the entire book andin a lot of the coursework that
we were given.
But I was like, wow, this issports, this is cool, like this.
This got to be something that Icould do this here, so that the
definition and then that chartin that book was like sort of
the confirmation that this canbe done in other things.

(43:52):
Now I think a lot of it too hasto be your personality.
I.
I believe that somewhere alongthe way I was conditioned to be
rebellious.
I left the public schoolsetting because you know, as I
mentioned, when I was a teacher,I pushed for a little bit of
funding for for something, and Iwas told by the superintendent

(44:14):
we are fair and appropriate, notoptimal, and I said what does
that mean?
So we provide the floor, notthe ceiling.
And I said I don't know what.
Can I curse on here?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, go ahead, brother.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
I said bullshit.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
That's not that.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
I cannot operate that way.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
We are very similar.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Right, I go to the private school and I see that
there it's just like we chargean exorbitant amount of money
for tuition special needs kidsand we're going to babysit for
six hours and collect our money.
And she's like man, this shit,this system is so broken it is
so broken, brother.
My initial thought is to.
I got to, I got to change it,and so, and by the way, to this

(44:52):
day, I continue to work inspecial education with special
needs families.
I do a lot of advocacy.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Are you working in a district or you it's like you
work one.
I have contracts.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
I have contracts with districts.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
And then I have my own company where I work with
with families privately.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
But I'll tell you that I I've lost district
contracts because I'm justtaking your values and because I
and here's the here's the coldhard truth I am in a financial
situation now, at this point inmy career, where I could tell
people to kick rocks yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Right.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
You got to earn that.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
You got to earn that in business, yeah, so so it's
nice, it's very empowering,isn't to be there?

Speaker 2 (45:30):
It is yeah so.
So for me to, you know, to tofigure out how can I move this
science in a different direction.
It started by moving it out ofthe classroom and out of, like
the whatever you know youmentioned in, in, in, in ABA.
You know that we put these kidsacross from us and we do these
little things that don't reallygeneralize the natural

(45:52):
environment.
It started for me moving out ofthe schools and focusing on
movement and exercise and activeliving.
That was my first point ofdiversion.
Then it extrapolated from thereinto, specifically, football and
sports, with, you know, thegeneral population, and so, and

(46:13):
then, and then NFL players,right To where we are now, and
then everything that's comesince.
So a lot of it has just beenthis gradual progression.
But it started with this ideathat behavior is about living
things regardless of diagnosesthat they have.
That was the very first thing,and then seeing an example in

(46:33):
the litter of it not beingapplied to special education was
sort of the green light to moveforward, and that's that's.
You know how we got to whereI'm at now, very cool, man Again
.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Once again, some paths, similar approaches, same
thing.
And I'm actually do work in a.
Besides the work I do withprofessional crisis management
association, my colleague Anikand I do stuff OBM and schools,
you know, really focusing on adistrict and the school level
change there.
We actually have some stuffwith different states as well.
We're doing some stuff withHawaii.

(47:05):
I'm stoked, man, it's very coolto be able to make those
changes yet.
But I want to make the shift now, boy.
Do we have similar paths?
Although it lookstopographically different,
functionally it's the same.
How tell me about this wholeuse of precision teaching and
the science for doing, forpredicting, I guess, for

(47:27):
predicting outcomes with it?
Is that what you're doing?

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah now yeah.
So let me backtrack for asecond and I promise it leads to
the end of the rainbow here.
In my work with NFL players, Ibegan to implement the concepts
of precision teaching.
I began to track data in a waythat was nonlinear for the first

(47:54):
time and just was stunned byyou mentioned being able to show
people the results, right, thedata and was blown away by the
data I was able to providepeople.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
What kind of data are you tracking?

Speaker 2 (48:16):
So an example would be for a pass rusher.
We were doing a drill where hewould have to not to get two in
the weeds.
The pass rusher has to goaround the arc we call it.
It's the path they take to thequarterback and they want to
shorten that arc so that theycan get to where the quarterback

(48:37):
is.
They don't overshoot, and so Iwould make the path really
narrow and I would make itreally difficult and I would
track frequency of being able todo that.
But I would time it Right.
So I would say, okay, you havetwo minutes to do this correctly
as many times as you can.
And what we were trackingsimultaneously was the precision

(48:59):
, the ability to do it correctly.
But then we were working onfatigue and fluency.
How often could he do itwithout getting tired?
Because in the NFL you heardsomething called the two-minute
offense at the end of the halfor the end of the game.
It's called the hurry upoffense.
There is no break.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Well, and that's also something that can be tracked
through biofeedback.
You can see what their heartrate is, how quickly they're
recovering what it was in termsof in compared to the time they
did it completed the task, yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
So if I was able to show this pass rusher on day one
, hey, we do two-minuteintervals here and you're
getting about three per minute,three correct responses per
minute, or six in that totaldrill, and at the end of a week
you're up to 15 in the drill, orseven and a half per minute.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
I think reinforce, or he's seeing his own progress.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Yeah.
And then I can say, hey, I cannow precisely not to use a pun
there, but I can now preciselysay you improved day to day or
interval to interval by X amountof percent.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Which is very rare for a coach to be able to come
in and do that.
Or, and also, they're onlylooking at the long-term outcome
Are we scoring touchdowns?
Are we doing this and that?
And we know, if we pinpoint theright behaviors, eventually
we're going to get that pie inthe sky outcome that we're
shooting for.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Exactly.
And then I would start to trackit simultaneously against the
competing behavior, right orbehavior we wanted to see
decelerate or decrease, and thenbeing able to use the overall
improvement index and go overthat stuff.
So that was the start ofimplementing it into football
and into sports and be like, wow, this is great.
Then, shortly after theformation of that media company

(50:36):
it's called Pro Football Network, by the way, I'm not affiliated
with it anymore.
I sold my stake when we gotacquired, but my focus there was
I was working with theseplayers and these coaches and
they all complained about howthere's more access to
information in football now thanthere's ever been for the fans.
Yet the fans are less informedabout football than they've ever
been.

(50:56):
What are you going to do withall?

Speaker 1 (50:58):
of that.
It looks good, the color graphslook great, but what's all this
stuff mean?

Speaker 2 (51:01):
And I think that's actually a larger societal issue
.
I think that goes beyondfootball.
But the reality is that thereare companies and I'll tell you
that.
I'll name them.
I have no issue here, but ProFootball Focus is a very famous
data analysis company forfootball and they provide all
these different things and theplayers hate it because they're

(51:23):
just making stuff up.
There's no way Like there'sgrading, like they grade players
, and it's like how do you knowwhat my coach told me to do on
this given play?

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Right, like you're saying, I did it wrong.
What's the standard we'reshooting for?
How do you know?
I didn't do exactly what mycoach told me to do.
And you're saying it was asuboptimal.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
And, by the way, this is like six years ago.
I'm having these thoughts inthis conversation.
Just recently, jj Watt, one ofthe best defensive players who's
ever played football, came outand called out Pro Football
Focus and said like guys, youguys, you don't know what you're
doing and this is public inGoogle, this is all over the
place, you're making stuff upand so that's an opportunity
right there.
When something like that pops upfor you, yeah, so I start to

(52:03):
think about OK, what can we?
How can I continue to build onwhat I'm doing?
But now put it into a biggercontext a database.
A lot of the problem is thatthese companies, these media
companies, these analysiscompanies, they're trying to
standardize what you see on thefield every Sunday.
They treat every environment,every team, every year, every

(52:27):
past season it's all the same,and the reality is it's not.
The NFL is this and I called itbefore it says multiverse of
madness, and we believe, asbehaviorists, that the
environment is such a big rolein how we behave.
In the NFL, the environment iscompletely changing.
Last year, a team, you knowteam A, had these players with
these coaches, and the very nextyear, 40% of those players are

(52:51):
gone and they have a whole newcoaching staff.
How could you reasonably saythat those two environments are
the same?
They're not Right, and sothat's a big area of focus for
me is getting rid of thatconcept.
But to what we said earlierthis is the way it's been done
now for close to two decades,and the fans have latched on to

(53:12):
this belief.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
You know just pause there for a second, yeah, Just
because I was thinking aboutthis like what could make it
stay similar is if they hadreally strong two things values
and I'm going back to behaviorsas values right Values and
systems.
You know good systems.
So you have the coach, you hirethe coach that has aligned
values and then, like events ofoffensive coach that values
these things.
Okay, you meet the values thatare of this organization and

(53:37):
here's the system that we use todo it right, so their behaviors
are aligned with that system.
Then you might be able to keepthings going in the right
direction.
But to your point now you've gota whole, probably because
nobody's hiring based on that,you don't have a way to assess
it.
They probably don't even knowwhat their own systems are or
how to make the connectionsbehaviorally, and so it's
restarting anew every year andthe best organizations are going

(53:58):
to adapt.
And that's the beauty ofbehavioral principles
Organizations need to adapt orthey die.
You know, that's just like anorganization and we don't want
to rely on natural selection.
We want to be able to pinpointbehaviors right.
Yeah, absolutely Not.
Let them happen accidentallythrough all these other things
that can occur, like injury andlosing and etc.
Etc.
And that's not just the casewith the teams themselves.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
That's the case with the sports media industry.
They're not adapting to what isactually meaningful and
relevant to the information theyshould be giving to their
audience.
So when I first jumped on ProFootball Network, my goal was to
bring a better educationexperience for the audience.
Parley my experience, my directknowledge and work with these

(54:42):
guys and say, hey well, you keepgetting, you keep getting fed
over here.
The actual humans on the fielddon't give a shit about, they
don't care about it, it doesn'tmean anything to them.
So what I wanted to do waschange that experience for the
audience and I think for thefour years that we built this
company to your point that youbring up really eloquently

(55:04):
reinforcers emerge that actuallycould divert your path and over
the four years Pro FootballNetwork became less about
educating the way I wanted it toand more about getting clicks
for ad revenue like every othermedia company.
Because what we learned early onis that's what was bringing in
money money being the audienceWith the shame because they
don't think about sustainabilityand like make it a win and win.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
You know, take a little less at the beginning,
right, but now you've got thegreatest thing in the world and
nothing else compares that,everything else going to fall
off, and that's how you get thatsustainability Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
And, you know, maybe your audience is familiar with
Ryan O'Donnell, the daily BA,but he is somebody that I
brought over to Pro FootballNetwork with me, and we had we
had this grand vision for whatwe were going to do.
In fact, today, as it stands,the most viewed content in Pro
Football Network's history wasput together by myself and Ryan,
and so, after four years and itbecame becoming clear the

(56:04):
direction that Pro FootballNetwork was going, as we were,
you know, people were coming toacquire us.
I could no longer be okay,profiting off of something I
didn't really believe in, and sothis was an opportunity for me
to kind of get paid and dosomething else, and so Pro
Football Network continues toexist.

(56:26):
It's now a subsidiary ofanother company, and their focus
and they're good at it is toget as many clicks as they can,
but that's not, personally,something that I believe in, and
so what I've done now is startmy own shop Football Behavior.
Footballbehaviorcom is thewebsite, and we have a free
newsletter, and it's ananalytics company, and we are

(56:49):
doing NFL analytics better, andwe start with a very, very
simple expression Humans playfootball.
Human behavior is predictable.
Thereby, football behavior ispredictable, and so, using the
principles of ABA, precision,teaching, standard, acceleration

(57:09):
, charting I have developed over15 proprietary metrics and a
database that allows me to makepredictions about team and group
behavior.
That's a different environmentfor me, because I've been
focused so much on individualbehavior all this time, but for
the last four or five years I'vereally been moving towards
group behavior and predictinggroup outcomes, and so that's

(57:33):
what I've been doing a lot of,and the model and all the
metrics have been public for twoyears, though they've been
backtested six years beyond that, so eight years in operation
total.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Oh man, very cool, and will you send me the link
where people can find moreinformation about that for the
show notes as well, so they cantake a look at the type of data
that you're collecting and justdig into a little bit more?

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Yeah, I think what's important to have people know,
especially football fans who arefamiliar with companies like
Pro Football, focus and ESPN andothers, is when you hear stats
metrics like EPA or Points PerGame or DVOA.
These are metrics that arerooted in averages and
standardization and, just from abasic statistics practice,

(58:22):
right, anytime you try to use anaverage and pull it across
multiple different environmentsbut use it as a standard average
, that's bad statisticalpractice, especially for
prediction.
It amounts to a 50-50 guess.
It's like the example of thedivorce rate, right, it almost
says the divorce rate is 50%.
50% of the barrage is going toend in divorce.

(58:42):
Well, that's not true if youlook at environments, right,
because in two people or collegeeducated and middle class or
higher, they're likely to staymarried forever, right?
So what I try to do in myanalytics is I bring the
environmental context back to itand I don't make any
assumptions.
So there's no player grading.

(59:03):
I'm not going to pretend toknow what a certain player was
coached to do.
It's all objective and it's allabout what the players and
teams are actually doing on thefield that I can observe and it
just really gets back to theprinciples and roots of behavior
science and applied behavioranalysis and then using that to

(59:23):
make predictions.
And you know elite sportsbetters want to be right 55% of
the time.
We've hit on 68% of ourprediction.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
That's incredible Wow .

Speaker 2 (59:33):
January 9th, before the playoffs started, I ran a
simulation of the playoffs,every playoff game all the way
to the Super Bowl.
On January 9th, I told mynewsletter subscribers that the
Kansas City Chiefs were going todefeat the San Francisco 49ers
in the Super Bowl and that theChiefs the point spread should
be about half a point, thatthey're very, very evenly

(59:54):
matched.
Well, as it turned out, a monthover a month later, the Chiefs
would beat the San Francisco49ers in Super Bowl in a game
that would go to overtime and agame that ended in a tie after
four quarters.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
Well, now did we at that point did that?
They weren't the playoffsweren't done yet right?

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
So we didn't even know they were going to be
playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
They hadn't even started yet no, that's amazing
man.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Yeah, so, and again, it's all.
It was all based on behavior.
It was all based on what notjust what they had done up to
that point, but, as any anyonewho's familiar with precision
teaching will be able to talkabout, it was about a lot about
their celebration rates Right,it was.
It was a lot about the way thattheir behavior was trending
over time.
It was a lot about their bouncerates, right, their consistency

(01:00:36):
, and at the time I made thatprediction, the Chiefs were plus
900 to win the Super Bowl.
So for anyone who's notfamiliar with sports betting,
they were not anywhere nearbeing a favorite, and if you bet
$100 on them to win Super Bowl,you'd get back 900 in profit,
right, so that's like a.
It was a long shot for them towin, but that's what our
behavior charting was showing us.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
But you got about 100 to get 900, or has it been 900
to get 100?

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Bet 100 to get 900.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
That's how much of a long shot they were at that
point, january 9th, to win theSuper Bowl.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
So when we made that prediction, a lot of people were
like you're crazy, this is aChiefs down year.
They're not good this year, youknow, the receivers suck and
all these different things.
And I said, all of that mightbe true in the way you look at
statistics, but what I'm tellingyou is the way the behavior is
tracking.
This is what I think is mostlikely to happen and and I have

(01:01:33):
some stuff that that's comingout over the next couple of
weeks that are the actualtransparent calculations and
breakdowns of our metrics sopeople can see the behavior
science involved.
But what we really try to focuson is moving away from this
reliance on averages.
Okay, the Miami Dolphins thisyear everyone kept talking about
their offense and how manypoints per game they averaged

(01:01:55):
and all these things, and I waslike man.
That hasn't been true aboutthem since week seven.
If you, if you watch theirtrajectory, they're they're due
for a collapse.
We said the same thing aboutthe Philadelphia Eagles.
We said in August, before theseason started, the Eagles, who
had just been in the Super Bowl,are probably going to go
through a severe regression atsome point this season because
their entire environment changedovernight.

(01:02:16):
They lost their entire coachingstaff, except their head coach,
new coordinators, new systems,new players, that they're
probably going to see someregression from that and then as
the season went on, they werewinning games and people kept
telling us, oh look, they'rewinning.
And we kept saying, yeah, buttheir behavior is not matching
their record.
Eventually it's going to comeback to earth.
They lost five of their lastsix games that got bounced in

(01:02:39):
the first round of the playoffs.
That isn't to say that we havethe foolproof method and we can
predict every outcome.
You can't make variables waytoo many that and that we
admittedly don't know and we'llnever know unless we work for
these teams.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
I'm getting 67.
That's huge.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
I mean, that is a big , that is incredible man.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
It sounds like I bet it's unheard of.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
It's a big number A lot of people find a lot of
issue with, with like is that,are you, is that really a liar?
Are you a liar?
And the great thing is Ipublished it all before the
games are played and in fact,every bet that, every prediction
we've ever made, every betwe've ever placed, is all
publicly available for people togo look at.
So the you know you can't dothis.

(01:03:21):
You can't be in the analyticsor prediction business and not
be transparent.
But so we are.
But I want to.
I want to emphasize that thesports betting is not the goal
here.
The sports betting is a proofof concept.
It's how I can apply what I'mdoing to something tangible, a
reinforcer, if you will, for theaudience.
Right?
What's most interesting to methrough this process is what it

(01:03:46):
actually means for teams, whatteams could do with data like
this.
Right, if we're showing, youknow, that a certain team is
trending in a different way, wemight be able to say to a team
hey, you might want to change upthe environment a little bit.
You need to make a change nowbefore this gets out of control,
right, you know?
Or vice versa at the end of aseason, you know a coach, you

(01:04:06):
know you might think a teamunderperformed, but we say, hey,
actually, from start to finish,this team improved by 60% this
season.
Give this coach another chance.
They're actually probablymoving in the right direction.
There's a lot of implicationsfor this data.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
I can see being a coach and getting down to the
molecular level, being a coachof coaches.
So you have the offensivelineman coach, you have the
quarterback coach and when theyunderstand these principles,
that can apply it.
They can start using goodmetrics to let the you know, to
know if they're on track or not,and then shared and even
getting the having the playersbegin to self monitor and report

(01:04:40):
out so they're recognizingtheir own behavior in the
outcomes.
Yeah, man, the power ofbehavior science.
Well, brother, I think you knowwe got up to just maybe a
little bit of our hour here.
Man, you know, say again, Iknow I think you might have said
it earlier on where can peoplereach out to you?
I know we're going to put stuffin the show notes, but they
want to say you know what?
Hey, brett, I want to find outmore from you, man, what's the

(01:05:00):
best spot?

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Yeah.
So the best, the best thing todo is to go to football
behaviorcom that's.
That's our website.
All of our content is there.
All of our analytics are there.
And then there's where you cansign up for the newsletter.
Newsletter is free.
It's 100% free.
There is a paid option, butthat's up to you guys at the
side if you want to do that.
But all of our content isavailable for free in that

(01:05:22):
newsletter.
You sign up there.
When you sign up there, you canalso you know all my contact
information is there Send me anemail.
It's be yaris at footballbehaviorcom for those who just
want to send an email and askmore questions.
But I can talk about this stufffor eons.
So please feel free to reachout, ask questions.
There's nothing hidden here.

(01:05:42):
There's nothing I'm trying tokeep behind a veil for any type
of sake.
This has no value If you guysthe audience don't see it as
valuable.
The only way for you to do thatis to know everything about it,
and I'm happy to always sharethat.
So, like I said, please visitfootball behaviorcom for all
that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Thanks, come on, brother, it's been fun.
Man, I love, love seeing peopleapplying the science outside of
the norm.
Great job.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Yeah, thank you.