Much of the focus on the Tennessee Titans overhaul this season has been about the changes Brian Callahan has been making to open up the offense.
But across the line of scrimmage, the defense also is getting quite the makeover.
Sure, the Titans will still line up in their 3-4 set in base defense, but it’s not necessarily where they line up that has changed so much as why they line up.
New defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson has been preaching a more aggressive approach to the way the Titans play defense from the day he was hired.
And so far, players and coaches have been buying into Wilson’s message.
Throughout the first week of training camp, the defense has caused the offense to put at least five footballs on the ground, most coming after a completed pass when the receiver had already completed the catch, but the defender – be it linebacker or defensive back – stayed with the play and turned a negative into a positive, at least from a defensive point of view.
“Aggressiveness doesn’t have to be sending more people. It’s the mindset in which you play,” Wilson explains. “Aggressiveness is if I’m on the line of scrimmage, I’m knocking guys back. I’m setting edges valiantly. I’m building a wall up front with the D-linemen.
“Aggressiveness is your linebackers reading their keys and coming downhill, and when they come downhill they’re coming down with the intention of running through people and knocking running backs backward. Aggressiveness is running sideline to sideline and swarming the ball and defending every blade of grass”
Aggression doesn’t have to come without intelligence, Wilson warns.
“Then when you have that attitude and you play that way, and when you add smart pressures or smart decisions, then you become more multiple. To me, aggressiveness is a mindset. It’s the way you go about your life on a daily basis,” Wilson says.
Wilson served last year as defensive backs coach for the Baltimore Ravens, an organization long known for that exact approach on defense. The Titans have been on the wrong end of too many big Ravens defensive plays to count over the years, ranging from Ray Lewis stealing the ball from Eddie George in the 2000 playoffs to Ed Reed’s blocked punt for a touchdown or Baltimore forcing fumbles by Alge Crumpler and LenDale White in the 2008 postseason.
That style of aggression is something Wilson and his assistants pledge to make a part of the Titans vernacular this season.
“I think we’re going to be extremely aggressive. I love the culture that we’re building right now,” says inside linebacker Kenneth Murray, one of at least five new starters in the Titans base defense this year. “The staff, what they’re preaching is tremendously good, and as players we’re starting to pick it up and take it for ourselves.”
That style was an easy sell for Wilson to Coach Brian Callahan, who has seen his offense victimized a few times by that aggressive play early in camp, even before the Titans could practice in full pads.
“We can’t turn the ball over on offense. It’s just unacceptable. But on the flip side, as the head coach, I get to be excited when the defense pulls it out,” Callahan says. “It’s the way you want your defense to be. You’ve got to get the ball off people in the NFL to win games. Turnover margin is one of the most critical factors. So, we’ve got to be better securing it down the field offensively, and our defense has got to keep at it. We punch balls out like that on a regular basis, you go plus-two in the turnover margin, you’re going to win a lot of football games just on that alone. So, I love the emphasis.”
Part of building the culture Murray was talking about started when the Titans decided to revamp their secondary was the addition of cornerbacks L’Jarius Sneed from Kansas City and Chidobe Awuzie from Cincinnati.
Both are regarded as man-to-man press corners, especially Sneed, whose strip fumble at the goal-line on Zay Flowers in the AFC Championship game helped Kansas City turn back a Baltimore threat as the Chiefs went on to reach and win their second straight Super Bowl.
Sneed’s aggressive style and reputation are already a big part of his game. So, he fits well with what Wilson wants to do.
“I love this aggressive style of defense that Coach (Wilson) has. Once I get it down and once the whole defense gets it down, we’re gonna be one of the best,” Sneed says.
Cornerbacks coach Chris Harris said the ball being out several times already in camp practices is a result of that being a meeting room and practice field emphasis.
“You get what you emphasize,” Harris says. “And that’s something we emphasize every single day – going after the ball, attacking the ball and being violent every single play. Every single time we are around the ball, the choice is to choose violence, whether that is violently attacking the ball and punching it out, violently tackling somebody, that’s kind of the mantra.”