Giants Nation Show (Giants Podcast)
Giants Hire Dennard Wilson as Defensive Coordinator | 120
27 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: Who is Dennard Wilson and why was he hired as the Giants' Defensive Coordinator?
But I'm coming home to you
Now we're back. Now we're back. Welcome to Giants Nation Show. I'm your host, Bobby Skinner, here with my co-host, the football grump. And we are live from Mobile, Alabama. You guys can hear us now? All right. That's why we don't do live podcasting as much as people probably want us to. We're live here from Mobile, Alabama.
The Giants have hired defensive coordinator Denard Wilson, special teams coordinator Chris Horton, and a bunch of other hires. How are we doing? Our favorite week of the year, and we're not muted now.
Yeah, it's our favorite weekend of the year. It's our home away from home, and every single time we come here, we're in a new home. This one is the best home by far, I think.
Yeah, I mean, hotels I prefer. Airbnb is, you know, I'll never advertise with them because I don't like them. But out of the Airbnbs, this is definitely the best one we had. And we'll give you a full recap of that in our Senior Bowl recap. But this one's nice. We got our cow that welcomed us here.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of hiring Chris Horton as Special Teams Coordinator?
We got a pool out back, so... Usually this is a Senior Bowl preview, and this is just a fun episode for us that we don't really care that much about views or anything. We have work to do this time.
Chapter 3: Why did the Giants retain coaches Charlie Bullen and Tim Kelly?
This is a major episode. This is the Giants hired Denard Wilson as their defensive coordinator episode. So, I mean, let's jump right into it. Denard Wilson was the guy that I wanted two years ago, right?
When we were down here two years ago trying to figure out who the next Giants defensive coordinator was going to be, if Mike Kafka was going to stay on OC, Denard Wilson was that number one guy for us.
Chapter 4: What can we expect from RB Coach Willie Taggart?
He goes to the Tennessee Titans, you know, chooses that clean slate with Brian Callahan instead of being on the hot seat right away with Brian Dable. And they didn't have good results. We're going to break that all down. I know this sounds crazy because we're going to go through some of his rankings and stuff. I am genuinely excited about him as a defensive coordinator.
Maybe that's confirmation bias because of the fact that I did like him a couple years ago. But listening to some Titans people, diving into the film, some of the numbers, he is just kind of what I like in a defensive coordinator, which is built in disguise, aggression, and relying on players, playing smart. You can't just have a single assignment and stick to it.
Chapter 5: What is the significance of the Senior Bowl for the Giants?
This defense, I think, is going to expect excellence, especially those guys on the back end.
It's early and we'll have to see it, but from everything that we've looked into, it sounds to me like Denard Wilson is the perfect blend of defensive coordinators that I like. He's had a varied background. We're going to get into all this stuff in depth, but he seems like a good blend of Wink Martindale and Patrick Graham to me, right?
Like somebody who likes to put pressure on the opposing quarterback to
in terms of varied looks and also with that Patrick Graham of disguised coverages in the back end and make quarterbacks do a lot more post-snap, which is sort of what Wink Martindale did, but that was always with an emphasis on bringing pressure from exotic places, which we don't know yet if that's going to be what we saw because Denard Wilson didn't really do a lot of that in Tennessee, but then also the roster there was severely lacking on the defensive side of the ball, especially in the back half, which really limits when you...
You really just can't blitz out of control like that.
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Chapter 6: How will the Giants' coaching changes impact their defensive strategy?
So but yeah, I mean, a guy with a very diverse background, you know, went through, you know, Greg Williams, Todd Bowles as our premier influences for him. And those are very attacking style defensive coordinators. But then also was with Jonathan Gannon, which is not really that situation.
Yeah, and then Mike McDonald. So he's kind of switched, like, he's not the lineup everybody in the line of scrimmage, play a lot of man coverage or aggression the way that guys like Todd Bowles and even Greg Williams are. He has adopted more of a Mike McDonald, more so than I would say Jonathan Gannon.
Like one of the reasons why I liked him was like, you know, he goes and it was a DB coach for the Eagles and they were top five in all passing categories. And he goes to the Ravens, same thing, you know, and obviously those teams had talent, but the Eagles, when he left, they went to 31st and passing defense the next season.
The Ravens, after he left, obviously they lost Mike McDonald and Anthony Weaver as well. They went to 31st in passing defense. I think that makes an impact. And his resume is the last two years as the Titans defensive coordinator. One year as the Ravens DB coach. Two years as the Eagles DB coach and passing coordinator. Four years with the Jets under Todd Bowles and Greg Williams.
Chapter 7: What are the key players to watch during the Senior Bowl?
Was with the Rams as a DB coach under Greg Williams again, and then he was a quality control, and then he actually was a pro scout for a little bit for Chicago after being an NFL player. With the Titans, let's just kind of go through some numbers and then try and divulge into what we saw on film, what we expect out of him. His first year, they were 30th in points per game, second in yards.
Second in yards allowed and 30th in points per game. I've never seen such a dichotomy between those two rankings before. You know, passing yards second, rushing 26. You know, so they were good in those 25th in each paper play. This past year, 28th in scoring, 21st in yards.
Like, kind of everything got worse this year, but we'll look at the depth chart of Tennessee and part of this conversation here. And that's extremely relevant. So by watching film, by going off of my notes from a couple years ago and what those guys like Mike McDonald like to do, and then listening and talking with some Titans people, looking at numbers, it kind of plays to what I like.
And so there's a little bit of bias for me. It's like, that's what I like. There is... aggressive disguise mixed with defenders needing to be understanding passing concepts and taking calculated risks.
Chapter 8: How do these coaching changes align with the Giants' future goals?
That's what I want. You can't do that with every DB. If you have Deontay Banks out there, it limits what you can do. You've got to have the right players and handle a lot of young players. That's what I look for in a defensive coordinator, especially coming from the DB coach background, is being very aggressive in the back end And I think that showed up on film.
I did a little mini breakdown of one today. And then I went and watched all the interceptions. And a lot of those were from heavy disguise coverages, right? You know, where you're running cover two from a single high, you back a nickel corner on the cover two. But also within that, it's not just...
The Giants actually started running a lot of this towards the end of Shane Bowen with the Giants and then a lot with Charlie Bowen. It obviously had better results when they were playing the Vikings, the Commanders, and the Raiders. They had more success with these types of things. But the issue was that like the defenders were just going to their spots for the most part, right?
Like, it's just like, Hey, you can disguise it. We're going to our spots. And a lot of times for the quarterbacks, it's like, all right, like, sure. I, I, you know, I just got to find the hole in the zone. What he's trying to teach is we're going to disguise that.
And the DB who is a part of that, the part of that disguise, you've got to understand what passing concept they're trying to get to reading that. And you need to take a calculated risk with it, right? You're not going to get interceptions unless it's just terrible overthrows or playing, you know, great man coverage. You're not going to get that without controlled aggression.
And I think that's something that he tries to teach. He didn't always have the guys that work that. I remember a quote from him talking about how, hey, we really have to simplify what we're doing here because guys are just not picking it up the right way, which is probably my biggest red flag for Denard Wilson, is that scheme is great. All this scheme is great.
At the end of the day, I think defensive coaching is a lot about teaching more so than just scheme. Everybody can have scheme. Where I think offensively is where you can scheme guys open and just hit that type of thing. Defenders, you got to have this guy matching this, match that, blitz here, back out there. But that's my only question is like how good of a teacher he is.
Everybody, I was shocked if there was a consensus from Tennessee of like, this is a good coach, right? And coordinators get more blamed than they deserve a lot of times when talent's not there. And it was almost consensus from the Tennessee crowd. Like, now this is a good coach who's been screwed by the talent of the Titans. The biggest challenge is going to be
Whether as defensive coordinator, Denard Wilson has enough time to fully teach DBs to do this stuff, because a lot of this stuff is going to be on the back end. A lot of the communication stuff and the understanding and being able to read the concept as it's happening and kind of
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