When the Titans finished the season as the AFC’s No. 1 seed in 2021, the club finished No. 6 in points allowed and No. 12 in yards allowed.
But along with the club’s offense, the defense had fallen off a bit in the last couple of years. In 2023, Tennessee was No. 16 in points allowed and No. 18 in yards allowed.
So with new head coach Brian Callahan, the Titans hired former Ravens defensive backs coach Dennard Wilson to be their defensive coordinator to help change that. In his Tuesday press conference, Wilson talked about his approach to development.
“For me, if I see a talented player, I feel like I can get the best out of them,” Wilson said, via Jim Wyatt of the team’s website. “Any player that I have ever been around, the first thing I am going to do: I pride myself in being a hell of a teacher. I am going to motivate them to be better than they think they should be or reach the potential they are supposed to. And I am going to inspire them to go get it.”
As for his philosophy, Wilson said he plans to make the Titans multiple “in everything we do” because “it’s not about the scheme, it’s about the players.”
“So, we have to figure out what they do well, and we’ll put the scheme around them to allow their talents to flourish,” Wilson said. “I can tell you this about the scheme, and I learned this a long time ago, General George Patton said this: ‘Nobody ever defended anything successfully. You are going to attack, and attack some more.’
“We are going to be an attacking defense. We are going to be violent in our approach. We are going to be smart, we are going to be intelligent, we are never going to compromise for competing, and that is the brand of football we are going to play around here.”