Dennard Wilson’s Schematic Evolution: A 2025 Tennessee Titans Defensive Post-Mortem
How the New Giants DC leveraged the "Sweat Tax" and "Two-Man" fronts to stabilize an NFL defense in flux.
Looking at raw team data, the Tennessee Titans’ defense was among the worst in the NFL. Looking deeper at advanced metrics like EPA (28th) and DVOA (29th), which adjust for opponent, the picture isn’t any better. Success Rate offers a slight signal that something might be off; the Titans finished 20th overall and were even a top-ten team in rushing success.
Tennessee in 2025 averaged a score of 28-17. The Titans’ defense was consistently playing on short fields or in high-volume situations (lots of plays) and was behind. Here is probably the best stat that defines the Tennesse defenisve season:
The Titans averaged 23.5 yards allowed per drive, second only to the Browns.
That metric alone should garner a top-five scoring defense in the NFL. Instead, the Titans gave up 1.42 Points Per Drive (PPD), finishing 29th overall. Their Red Zone TD% was the league midpoint (16th), but they were bullied on the ground there as their Nickel defense failed to hold up. To add to the imbalance, they were top-ten in RZ Pass TD%.
What’s even crazier is that the Titans averaged ~4.1 yards per play when garbage time is removed. Tennessee arguably had one of the better defenses between the 30s. But opponents didn’t have to drive the ball to score. They were among the league's most efficient defenses yet were stuck in the worst situations.
The Titans’ defense, the entire year, was trying to keep its head above water. The offense was abysmal, the head coach was fired mid-October, and an anchor in the middle of the defense, T'Vondre Sweat, missed weeks 2-6. Star CB L’Jarius Sneed was also lost for the year after Week 7.
With Head Coach Brian Callahan fired, the Titans brass started a mini defensive “fire sale.” First, it was inconsistent, but high-potential Nickel, Roger McCreary (Rams). Then, hybrid Edge Dre’Mont Jones was moved to the Ravens. Veteran Safety Quandre Diggs would be waived following Week 9.
By the midpoint of the year, the Titans' defense had lost three critical pieces to their scheme, designed by second-year defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson. What looked like a promising year quickly turned into a nightmare scenario.
Though the defense didn’t get statistically better in the second half of the season, the ability for Tennessee to keep consistent play is a critical aspect of Wilson’s approach to designing defense. He had an initial plan for 2025, but that was thrown out the window by Week 10 of the season, when survival mode had to be kicked in.
Wilson entered the season wanting to run a highly complex and player-reliant scheme. Instead, he was forced to make practical roster adjustments, leaning heavily on his interior defensive line.
At the start of the season, Tennessee ran what Wilson referred to as a “Ravens-Lite” hybrid 3-4 that functioned as a 2-4-5 Nickel on about 70% of their downs. The main feature of this scheme was the ability to “press everything.”
The Titans’ objective in the secondary was to eliminate easy throws and force the opponent’s quarterback to place the ball into high-traffic or low-percentage areas of the field. It was also meant to disrupt the timing of the offense.
The problem was that the plan didn’t come to fruition. Sneed was brought to Tennessee to be a press-centric lockdown boundary CB and never settled into that role. Prior to his injury, he allowed 1.2 yards per coverage snap (72nd) and had a quarterback rating of 137.7, which ranked him 105th out of 108 qualifying CBs!
In a coverage structure like Quarters, which places skill stress on the outside and diagnostic stress on the Safeties, the overall performance of the secondary was lackluster at best. Wilson needed to clean up the backend by loosening up the CBs and making them “earn the right to press.”
