 This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans. Plan on paying less for the coverage you need with Farm Bureau Health Plans. Get a quote today at FBHP.com. With Amy Wells, I'm Mike Keith and we're now joined by new Titans defensive coordinator Denard Wilson. Welcome to the Bed MGM studio. Thank you. It's nice to be here. We're glad to have you. Good. And you, everybody wanted you this off season. I'm glad the Titans got you. I'm glad the Titans got me with women. I'm right where I wanted to be. This is a hot man right here. He is a hot man. One of the most buzzed about names. And now here you are. And now here you are. Okay, so the press conference last week, you threw out a lot of names that were influences. Right. I mean a lot of names. It was like you had just won an Academy Award and you were thanking everybody. So what we wanted to do, and Amy's taking the lead on this. We wanted to go through your history a little bit to see where these names come into play. Is that okay? That's fine. All right. So Amy, take it away. Yeah, I think what we're going to do is just show you your life a little bit. So I'm going to start at the very beginning because you prepped at Demathecatholic, which is really close to Washington, D.C., right? Yes. Okay. So from there you signed with the University of Maryland, where you were a four-year letterman. Yes. Three-year starter in the secondary, and you spent the last three seasons there playing for Ralph Friesen, correct? Yes. All right, so far so good. You're rolling, Amy. You're rolling. So after that, you signed as an undrafted free agent with Washington in 2004. Correct. Head coach there's Joe Gibbs. Defensive coordinator was Greg Williams. Here we go. Yes. And Steve Jackson was part of the secondary staff. So this is where it gets interesting, Mikey. Okay. Steve Jackson is on the staff here now, and I don't think he's probably more coaching safeties and nickels. He was coaching me. He was my safeties coach. Okay. Good. You know, Steve Jackson was here, obviously. Steve Jackson played for the Oilers and Titans. Oh, yeah. And, you know, he's a hell of a coach, and he's a great influence on me. That's why I have him here with me now. Okay. So Steve Jackson's your coach in Washington. You had an injury. Yes. And that basically ended it for you? Yeah. Ended my career. My left leg came back again and then got hurt again, and I ended up messing up my other knee. So at that point, I was like, I'm kind of done with playing football. I want to be a football coach. So that's where the journey started. All right. So the journey starts. What was it like being with Greg Williams during that time? Well, playing then, you know, Greg was tough. All right. He was a tough-minded coach, and he put a lot of pressure on the players. So you had to you had to fight through a lot of adversity. You had to be mentally tough. You had to have a strong mindset. So all those things that he was doing to instill that in us as players, and then later being around him as a coach, it's kind of some of the same things that I've been able to pick up in my philosophy of coaching and where we're going forward here. So you mentioned you decided you wanted to be a coach. So that's where we're going to pick up this story, because you go back to Demetha Catholic. Yes. Decided to coach there for a couple years. Then you become a graduate assistant at Maryland for two seasons. After that, you make the move to the National Football League. And Jerry Angelo hired you as part of the scouting department with the Chicago Bears. Now that is not coaching. No, it's not coaching. So what happened was, you know, I was coaching at the University of Maryland, and I was trying to get back into the National Football League. And when you're a young coach in the college ranks, it's hard to get a full-time job, right? Everybody will say you don't have experience. So I was working there at Maryland, and I got a call actually from Bobby DePaul. Bobby DePaul was the pro scout, the head of pro scouting with the Chicago Bears. He's a former University of Maryland grad. So he calls me and say, hey, I heard a lot about you. I followed your career, and I know you want to get in coaching. I have an opportunity for you to come in and scout. You do this for a few years, and if you decide to stay and scout and you stay, if you decide to go into coaching, you'll be better off as a coach going into scouting and then getting back into coaching. Because his big thing was, you'll learn the ins and outs of the building. You'll learn how to evaluate talent. You'll learn how to work with both coaches and players, and the knowledge that you have and how the organization works will help you going forward. I give him a lot of credit for that, and Jerry Angelo, but that was probably one of the greatest things I've ever did in terms of professional growth is going to scout and then going back to coaching. That's pretty good advice. That's very good advice. So you were able to take that experience, and in 2012, you head to the Rams with Jeff Fisher. And some of the names on there, I believe the OT people are going to recognize because A couple. Yeah. You have quality control coach there, and then you become the secondary coach, and you're working with Dave McGinnis, who is a friend of ours, Greg Williams, of course, who we've talked about, Chuck Cecil, and Frank Bush, who's now, again, the Titans linebacker coach. Yes. You know, just going to the Rams was a great opportunity. Greg Williams and I, we stayed in contact after I was done playing, right, because I made an impression on him, and I respected how he went about his business. So we stayed in contact, and throughout the scouting years, he was like, if I have an opportunity for you to come on board, I'm going to bring you on board. So he ends up leaving New Orleans, he goes to the Rams. I get a call from him, say, are you willing to come do quality control? And I was, I just jumped at it. You know, obviously I want to get back in coaching and, you know, being around that staff with Jeff Fisher and obviously Frank Bush, who's on the staff now and is a linebacker coach. Frank's one of my biggest mentors as a coach. When I was a young coach, Frank Bush was the guy that kind of trained me on how to do things, how to set up your power points, how to present certain things in the meeting room with the players. So he was vital in my development as well, obviously getting his job, who am I going to surround myself with, people that I trust and people that I know are going to do it the right way. And we, we both look at things, you know, the same in terms of how we attack football. So on the Frank Bush front, are you part of the daily text that he sends out at like what, 430 in the morning where he has a thought or a message or an inspirational sort of quote or whatever it is? Yeah, Frank, I guess he started this years ago. Every morning he's an early riser. So my day is always starting by competing with Frank to get in the building. So I'm trying to get in the building before Frank does every day because he's going to work out and then he's going to send out his quote or the day. But every day during football season and whenever we're at work, he sends out a quote or day. It's something inspirational. It's things that you can actually take on a daily basis and put it in front of your group of guys and just talk on it, you know, because it's all about experiences, how you get better at things, how do you fight through adversity. When you're handling success, when you're not, it's those type quotes that's very inspirational and you can use it on a daily basis. He is a mentor to maybe hundreds of people. Yes. I mean, it's amazing how many people will say Frank Bush did this for me or he's this and he's also meant some kind of linebacker coach. Yeah, he's one of the best coaches I've ever been around. He's talking about being detailed, getting the players to play for him, playing at a high level. He's had all kinds of different athletes, different personalities and everywhere he's been, those players have played at a level higher than they're supposed to in terms of their their potential and when he gets into a room, guys get better and they enjoy playing with him. He has an infectious personality. He's demanding all at the same time and he has a wealth of knowledge and guys grabs to him. Right. So you may be aware that on Titans Radio, Dave McGuinness works with us, right? That he's a big part of what we do. You're going to see him in this building like every day starting in March. He will. I mean, he kind of sleeps here. He's coach Mac. He goes everywhere. He watches tape. He does all those coach Mac things. He has talked about you fondly for some time. When you got to know him starting in 2012. What was that like? It was great. You know, obviously Mac has had a lot of years of service in the National Football League being a head coach, being a linebacker coach. I mean, he was part of one of the greatest, you know, defenses with the Chicago Bears. But Mac, you know, Mac is a guy that's welcoming to everybody. If you listen, you can gain a lot from him. And when he feels a certain way about you, he's going to gravitate to you as well. And, you know, when I was in St. Louis through those years, you know, Mac would grab me, bring me in his office and talk about, hey, you can be better this way. You can do this better. You're actually getting better at this, you know. So it was always encouraging, you know, being around Mac and then you know about his stories. No. Wait a minute. No, does he have a story? He has a story about everything. I know. You know, sometimes you hit the same ones over and over. We have. I don't want to hold court, but it's, he's great, you know. He gave me some great words of wisdom last year before I went to Baltimore. I was at the combine and I didn't get a job that I thought I was, I had a good opportunity to get. And Mac said, you know what, it's going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. He said, you're going to move on from this. You're going to grow in a better opportunity will come for you. And guess what? The best opportunity I could have got was being here with the Tennessee Times. Well, that's what we think. I'm going to coach McGinnis for a second and he likes to give all of us a hard time. And so we give him a hard time back. But like Frank Bush and maybe even to a greater extent, he's been a mentor to so many people. I mean, it's, it's staggering the head coaches you meet that almost, I mean, they have to hug him because they feel like they owe him that start and those lessons and the way he would give them chances to present in front of the offense or the defense or the entire team. So they would learn how to do it. He's a master teacher in this business. Yeah, he gives you an opportunity. It's funny. You said that the first time I ever got in front of a whole team is one day a coach had got sick and he didn't make it in to the building, right? So Jeff Fisher comes to Mac was like, someone has to present this. So Mac says to coach, to coach Fisher, let the Nara do it. And Fish was like, is he ready to do it? Mac said, you haven't seen him in front of the room. I've seen him in front of, in front of the room. Let him do it. And I went up there and I presented. I forgot what the situation was and people responded well to it. But it was just him believing in me and then telling Jeff Fisher when I was a quality to control coach that I had the ability to speak in front of people. That was huge for me as a young coach. And he's bypassed several opportunities for himself to give other people chances and in that way. I mean, it's one of, please don't tell him we said this OT people, but we're bragging on coach back. Okay. I'm sorry, Amy. Go ahead. No. This is your life. Donard Wilson. I know. I don't want to lose. No. Don't lose your place. How are we doing so far? You're doing great. We're hitting the high points. There's the Steve Jackson connection, the Frank Bush connection. We're working on all of it. Yes. And you know, we love the Greg Williams talk because that was our guy before he was anybody else's guy. Yes. Yes, he was. Okay. So you've had your time with the Rams. We're moving on now. We're going to New York. We're going to New York. And the Jets. So you were the secondary coach there for four years. For the last two years, we're the passing game coordinator. Let's talk about some of the names that you were able to interact with in that situation. We've got Todd Boles as the head coach for two years. Nate Blitz is grandmother. Yeah. Right. Yes, he will. Adam Gase. Poor grandma. Adam Gase was there for two years with the Jets. You're working with people like Casey Rogers, Mike Caldwell, Steve Jackson, again, Joe Vitt, Frank Bush, and there's Greg Williams again. Greg Williams. Yeah. It's a never-ending circle. You have your squad. I have my squad. It's the people I've been around. It's kind of, you know, I've been trained in many systems, but the verbiage, the way we handle business, the way we go about teaching players, the way we have high expectations, how we are demanding on people. It's a philosophy, a mindset that we've had in that tight circle. It's funny. You talk about going to the Jets and Steve Jackson again. Steve Jackson was out of a job. So if you, how things go full circle, he's my coach. When I first come in the National Football League, he's out of a job. I was the lead DB coach, pass game coordinator, and I needed an assistant. Guess what I go get? Stevie Jack. Steve Jackson. So it's crazy how everything goes full circle, but in that moment, in that time, I trusted him. I knew the coach. I know the coach that he is, and I know how he coached and how detailed he is. So obviously, having him in and then having him down was huge for me. I'm a Todd Bowles fan. I always have been. I just think he does it the right way. He's class all the way, and there's a professionalism to how he goes about the job. And they're also very successful, particularly on defense. What is it about Greg Williams' plan, which is attacking that is somewhat different and somewhat similar to Todd Bowles' plan, which is attacking? This is the misconception about attack defense. Attack defense isn't just the pressure package. It's the mindset and it's the way you play. When you attack, it's about attacking the line of scrimmage, being violent at the point of attack. It's about your effort running to the ball. It's about the competitive nature in which that you play. And then you mix it in with bringing pressure off the edges, bringing pressure off the quarterback, up the middle to affect the timing of the quarterback. So being an aggressive defense isn't always about the blitz packages. It's about the mindset and the way that you play football. You're not catching, you're attacking other people. You're playing offensive defense. You're trying to dictate to them instead allowing them to dictate to you. I don't know that I've ever heard a defensive philosophy described in terms of a mindset as opposed to in terms of a scheme. I think that's very interesting. But look where he's been and look who he's been with. I know. I mean, Joe Vet is a, I mean, you mentioned that name. Y'all pulling out names. I mean, Joe Vet is a, I mean, what a football coach. Yes he is. Great mind. What do you learn from him most? Joe Vet is, the biggest thing I learned from Joe Vet is how to connect with people. Like Joe Vet, he's a, he's an outstanding guy in front of the room. He can galvanize people, but it's about, he can, he can bring a group together and make them play as one. He can get people to believe in one another better than I've ever seen in my life. And when he speaks in front of people, he moves you. And that's one of the, the biggest things I took from him is like, he can grab the attention of anyone and you're going to be dialed into him and you're going to believe what he says. But he's a man that believes what he says and he says what he means. He was always by some considered the secret weapon of the New Orleans Saints during the greatest period in their history. You think that's fair? I say it's fair because Joe Vet, he, he's more analytical than a lot of people think. So the, the, the small details on how teams were attacking, who was in a game, why should we pressure? Why shouldn't we pressure? He was helping Greg with piecing all that together. Okay. You know, Joe Vet is, he's a great coach and obviously he can't stay away because he retired and then he went back to the Denver Broncos right now. So he said he was done and he enjoyed playing golf and then next thing you know, he's back with Sean Payton. Yeah. Are they ever done? It's hard. It's hard. It's been great, by the way. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. We're moving on from New York. Now we're heading to Philadelphia. Four years with the Jets. Four years. Yes. And now we're moving to Philadelphia. We're going to Philadelphia. We're going to Philadelphia. We're going to Philadelphia. You're with the Eagles for two years. Jonathan Gannon is the defensive coordinator there. Correct? Yeah. What was that experience like working with Jonathan? It was kind of funny because, you know, Jonathan ends up getting a defensive coordinator job. But Jonathan was the coach that used to call me as a DB coach about technique. And it's funny because I knew him through Jerry Gray, right? Who used to be here. And Jonathan used to be here. He used to be his assistant. So that's how I knew Jonathan. And when he was actually here, we had a lot of communication about defensive back play, you know, just little things. So he would call. We had a connection. And one day I think it was right before the Super Bowl, right before one of the Super Bowls, I get a call from him, like, would you be interested in going to Philadelphia? And I was like, yeah, but I didn't understand. I didn't know that he was talking about to be, you know, the defensive coordinator. And then one day he calls me, say, I got the job. You want to come? And I jumped at it. And then obviously I was going closer down 95 to be closer to family back in Maryland. So that worked out. Well, Jonathan, one of the smartest people I've ever seen. I mean, the fact that he and Arthur Smith were here together as young assistant coaches for Mike Munchack, which I mean, it's really stunning that we had that kind of brain power in the room at one point last year. They were obviously both head coaches. And I think Arthur will be again. But the cerebral nature, he didn't necessarily play the same style of defense, not known as much for the quote unquote attacking. Yeah. Jonathan believed in keeping a roof over the defense, eliminated explosive plays, still playing fast, still playing physical and taking the ball away. And that was it. That was his approach. He was going to be coverage first. When he pressured, it was going to be timely pressures when he knew that he can attack certain protections and he knew that he can get home when he called it. But it was more past first, keep a roof over it, play good pattern match underneath defense, stay connected at the top of the routes. And then when you do that, when you're connected at the top of the routes, meaning I'm attached to receivers, it creates a hesitation for the quarterback because there's no way to throw. And then when you have elite pass rushers like we had in Philly, when you're connected and know where to throw, guess what happened? You get 70-something sacks. That's true. That works. Yeah. Could we order that now? Remember this. It's not about skiing. It's about players. I know. There you go, Mikey. OK. I'll sit down now. All right. We're doing a geographical loop here because we started in Maryland. We started right outside of DC. And we are now ending in Baltimore where you spent the 2023 season. Yeah. With John Harbaugh and Mike McDonald, of course. And that was kind of your last stop before you came here. Tell me about being in Baltimore. Baltimore was great. You talk about all the coaches. John Harbaugh is amazing. Obviously, when you're doing it 15-plus years, there's nothing he hasn't seen. Right? And his timing in terms of getting the players together, his timing on when things are going well, his timing on when it's going bad, when he can communicate and bring the unit and make them stay focused at the job at hand. Like, every day we talked about, every day was about being 1-0. And then we talked about winning, but he abbreviated winning to what's important now. And those are all the small things. So Harbaugh was, it was great working for Harbaugh. And obviously we won. We played good complementary football. You know, almost had a chance to, we really had a chance to go to Super Bowl. Failed short. And then Mike McDonald, I mean, he's going to, to me, Mike's going to have great success in Seattle. He's one of the smartest guys I've ever been around. He's the mixture of the cerebral with the aggressive. And, you know, I love my time with him. We created a great connection, a great bond. He's a brother for life. Baltimore was a great experience for me. Seat Geek is now the official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans, whether you're buying or selling tickets to Titans Games or any other live event in Nashville. Seat Geek is the place to do it. Seat Geek, the new official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans. So. Now we are here in present day. Wait, so Titans fans can fan. Oh, so Titans fans can fan. I'm sorry. You didn't do your line. No, I got really excited about it. Why are you going to ask him? Talking. Well, I asked him something else. He's going to have to go soon. So. But I'm having such a nice. Danard Wilson, Titans defensive coordinator with us on the OTP. We've brought, we've gone through your entire, your life now, your professional life. Now here we are in Nashville and you are able to take all of these pieces and put them together in this new role. How does one do that? How do you take a piece of everything and consolidate it into your mindset, your philosophy, the way that you're approaching this new position? Well, it just didn't start when I got here. Throughout those course of years from the journeys that I've taken and the people that I've been around, I've been formulating what I've been wanting to do the whole time. I've been preparing myself for certain situations, having a game plan on how I'm going to structure things with the coaching staff, responsibilities, those things. And really it goes back to Greg Williams. Greg Williams is one of the most organized, detailed individuals there is. And I was a quality control coach for him, so I had all the information. So I started to build the way I would do things and run things, not last year or this year. This happened about 10 years ago. Wow. So as you go through these experiences with these other people that you've been around, you say, oh, I'm going to take this. I'm going to put this into how I'm going to do it. I'm going to take this out of it because the game has evolved a little bit to hold the same weight that it did before. So it's been a years of, like I say, a long obedience in the same direction where I've gotten to this point. Now it's time to just put it all on paper, put the film together, put it to life, and let the players go do what they need to do. I'll ask you about a couple of staff members outside of, we've talked a lot about Steve Jackson and Frank Bush on your staff here. Tracy Rocker. Yeah. And getting him here, back here. Right. What a teacher. What a, just a quality human being. Why was he important to sort of this formula that you've built in the defensive coaching staff through Brian Callahan? Well, like you said, he's a great person. And every person that you've talked about that's here and that's on that defensive staff are great people first, right? But Tracy is a, he's a hell of a teacher. You know, and when you're down in the trenches with the big guys, it's a little bit different. Like being with the DBs is a whole different world and being with the big guys is a different world. And he has a way about himself that he can he can identify with them on and off the field. He can teach them, but he's also there to help them do life, you know, that stuff that happens in life outside of the football field. He's a great connector. Like he can bridge the gap. And like you said, he's fun to be around. You know, it's never a bad day with Tracy. Every day that he comes in the building, it's a smile. He's going to work, he's going to work his tail off. And, you know, he's going to get the guys to play, play hard, play physical and play smart. So you're a secondary guy. You convince or offer or however you want to say it, Chris Harris to stay as the lead dog in the secondary, so to speak. Very impressive last year and what we saw from him. Why was it important to have Chris Harris as part of the staff? Well, obviously it's continuity. He knows the players. And what we say, this is a players driven league, right? So he had a great connection with those guys and then just watching from afar, right? When you're a DB coach, you're watching everybody. Like you're watching with every other DB coach is doing and how well their players play. And everywhere that he's been, even when he was an assistant with the Chargers, those guys played well. Funny thing about Chris, you don't know this connection. Here we go. When I was a scout for the Chicago Bears, Chris Harris was a player. Was a Chicago Bear. Yeah. So I've known Chris since about 08. So is he crazier on the practice field than you? Or are you crazier than he? I'm full of high energy. Well, yeah. And he's certainly low energy. Yeah. I mean, it's all about competing. So I'm not going to compromise for competing. So we'll see when we get on the field. Who is an ultimate, if you draw him up, who is an ultimate Denard Wilson football player? Who as a player represents what you want to have in your defense? Brian Dawkins. Ah. Yeah. I want people to play. I want guys to play with a certain mindset, right? You know, you know, you hit a term dog all the time. Mm-hmm. In my opinion, you know what a dog is? He's a disciplined s*** with grit. And that's the type of guy. Those are the type of guys I want around me. I want guys that's disciplined, that's on the field, and they're gritty. You know, they can dig down deep when things get tough and they can find something within themselves to take it to another level that's willing to play so hard for so long that they make other people quit. That's the type of guys I want. Have you had a chance to spend any time with Jeffrey Simmons yet? Yeah. I met with Jeffrey once. He came into the building. He's a big man. So, you know, we just talked a little bit, got to know each other a little bit. You know, he's been a hell of a player here and we expect him to keep doing the same thing. It's up to us to put him in positions to keep having success. But, you know, he's a guy that can wreck shop and you can't have enough of those guys. And then the greatest thing that I've learned about him, you know, just walking and building, he's a hell of a teammate. And the guys, they appreciate him. They respect him. And because he plays so hard and he's such a good player, the other players will follow suit. So it's great to have those guys. It's been great to have you sitting with us. Thank you for the time. This is fun. Thank you. The press conference was a huge hit. The fans are very excited. Yeah. I'm excited. Would you blitz, Grandma? I will blitz, Grandma. That's great. That's what I want to hear. I will blitz, Grandma. Grandma got run over by a defensive end. Or a corner. To me, it's all about winning. That's it. And I don't care who's in the way. We got to go through them. I love it. Danard Wilson, thank you so much. Thank you. For Amy Wells, I'm Mike Keith. Thank you for joining us for the special edition of the O-T-P.