The Tennessee Titans defense has been a hot topic this offseason, and one of the bolder claims I’ve heard is that the 2026 Titans roster could field the most talented defensive unit Robert Saleh has ever coached.

Ever??

That includes his 2019 San Francisco 49ers defense that reached the Super Bowl, and the 2022-23 New York Jets groups anchored by Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner. That’s some stiff competition!

My friend Stoney Keeley of 104.5 The Zone and the Sobros Network made that argument on Football and Other F Words, and after digging into it further, the case is more compelling than you might expect.

The defensive front is the engine

The argument begins with the defensive line, and for good reason. Saleh’s scheme lives off of the front four, and the Titans have assembled a group that compares favorably to any unit Saleh has previously worked with.

The 2019 49ers had Nick Bosa, DeForest Buckner, Arik Armstead, and Dee Ford. Tennessee does not have a Nick Bosa,if you haven’t noticed, and nobody is pretending otherwise. But on the interior, defensive tackle Jeffrey Simmons and defensive end John Franklin-Myers feel like a half tick better than the Armstead-Buckner pairing that anchored San Francisco’s Super Bowl run. Those two are the headliners, but the depth behind them is where the argument picks up steam.

Keeley pointed out something that has been underappreciated: the versatility Saleh can deploy with this group. He argued there’s a misconception stemming from Saleh’s media availability earlier this offseason, that Saleh larrgely wants his guys to play just one position with minimal alignment changes. When you go back and watch New York’s defensive tape from Saleh’s tenure, Stoney explained, Franklin-Myers moved across all four spots on that front. He believes the same flexibility will show up some in Tennessee.

Here’s where the conversation took a turn I didn’t expect. The common concern among Titans fans is the edge rush, specifically whether Jermaine Johnson, Jacob Martin, Keldric Faulk, and Femi Oladejo can generate enough pressure from the outside. Keeley flipped that on its head. He believes the outside spots are five or six deep when you count all the bodies, and that the real question mark is on the interior behind Simmons. If Jordan Elliott comes off the field in a rotation and Simmons shifts around, who is the fourth man? Are the Titans banking on third-round rookie Jackie Marshall to contribute early?

The secondary has the athletes, even without star power

The other half of the argument rests on what Saleh has historically done with secondaries that lack household names. The 2019 49ers had an aging Richard Sherman and then a collection of players like K’Waun Williams, Emmanuel Moseley, and Jaquiski Tartt who never became engines of defenses elsewhere. The Jets had Sauce Gardner and then DJ Reed and Michael Carter II. Outside of the obvious star, those were complementary pieces elevated by the pass rush in front of them.

Keeley went deep on Relative Athletic Score to illustrate his point about the Titans’ defensive backs. Safety Tony Adams posted a 9.71 RAS. Amani Hooker came in at 9.08. Cornerback Alontae Taylor registered a 9.06. Even Cordell Flott, at 7.46, sits at a respectable mark. Across 16 qualifying defenders on the projected roster, Keely found an average RAS of 8.62, a number that speaks to the raw athletic ability Saleh will have to work with.

“If the defense does that with less talented guys, what is it going to do with more talented guys?” Keely said. “It’s really that simple for me.”

Saleh has a proof of concept for turning adequate secondary talent into a functioning, complementary unit when the defensive front is dominant. The Titans are betting on that formula again.

There are still real worries. Secondary depth remains thin, though it’s reasonable to expect the Titans to add a couple players in the coming weeks. The interior defensive line depth behind Simmons and Elliott is the sneakier concern, and it is one that could dictate how much Saleh moves his starters around.

The talent and experience are legitimately there for this defense to be special. Whether it reaches that ceiling will depend on how quickly a roster riddled with newness can gel under Saleh’s system. Training camp will tell us a lot, and we are days away from getting our first real look.