The phrase “no-name ____” gets thrown around a lot in the NFL. And for the Tennessee Titans, that is exactly what they’ll go to war with this fall on one side of the ball; the no name defense.
“It’s funny because I spent some time in California in the off season and if you talk to anybody who’s not from Tennessee, they can’t tell me two names on our defense, we’re virtually the no name defense,” said Titans Defensive Coordinator Chuck Cecil told me during out exclusive chat.
“So they’re unknown commodities at the defensive end position, Jacob Ford, Williams Hayes- unknown guys from unknown places that are second, third year players. You got Sen’Derrick Marks, a second year player from LSU you have no idea who he is, you got Jason Jones, no one knows who he is, and yet they all have the potential to be very dynamic players individually. Not to mention as a group,” said Cecil.
By Paul M. Banks
Jones will be the starting left defensive tackle with Hayes and Ford the starting Ends. Marks will back up starting right d tackle Tony Brown. He’s the leader of the group, but Jones needs to be the man here. It all depends on how they respond to the loss of leader Kyle Vanden Bosch. For their sake, hopefully better than they recovered to the loss of Jevon Kearse.
“Defensive end is becoming an en vogue, sexy position, sort of like how the movie (“The Blind Side”) made LT a sexy position. Like I said both those young guys are very talented, so how they deal with it mentally will be very big, it’s an unknown commodity, I expect things, I hope for things,” Cecil continued.
And then you look at the linebacker core, Keith Bullock got hurt, so we have G-Mac, Gerald McGrath, his side is very good, but the big gift we got was Will Witherspoon, to get him for what we got him, in our situation was a Godsend and I look for him to be a real good player for us,” said Cecil.
The Titans better hope they’re starters stay healthy in that group, because depth is lacking. The secondary, like the other two position groups will be breaking in new starters.
“We’re going to have a new right corner spot because Finney’s (Cortland Finnegan) going to move over to the left…they (the starting safeties who have Pro Bowl appearances on their resume, but slumped in ’09) didn’t play nearly as well as they could. They know that, I know that. Maybe the American public knows that. I think we’re going to be a lot better than people expect,” Cecil said of the secondary.
Paul M. Banks is President and CEO of The Sports Bank.net , a Midwest focused webzine. He is also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, the Chicago Tribune’s blog network, Walter Football.com, the Washington Times Communities, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank and @bigtenguru