Robert Saleh doesn’t hold back when asked about T’Vondre Sweat’s fit in his Titans defense at the NFL Combine

Is the Sweat Shop back open? Robert Saleh seems to have shut down concerns about T’Vondre Sweat’s fit into his defense for now…

Easton Freeze — Tennessee Titans Beat Writer
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Will T’Vondre Sweat fit in Robert Saleh’s new defense?

This has been a recurring question in Tennessee Titans circles since Saleh was hired in January. Sweat is a prototypical 3-4 nose tackle. Saleh runs a 4-3 defense. Things with Sweat have already felt tenuous after he dealt with missing practice and playing time early last season recovering from a surgery, and took a bit to ease back into things. It was a relatively open secret during the Jarvis Brownlee Jr. saga that Sweat’s locker room fit was a question mark in the eyes of the Borgonzi regime just like Brownlee’s.

Sweat was a more expensive investment and is a more talented football player, so he’s had a longer leash. but the Titans want more out of him. And this year feels like now or never.

But does a new coach with a new scheme push his case over the edge? Saleh chimed in from Indianapolis at the Combine.

Robert Saleh addressed T’Vondre Sweat’s fit in his defense

At his main podium session, Saleh was asked about the fit of a player like Sweat into his 4-3 defensive front built on speed instead of size.

“Yeah, I’ll address (T’Vondre) Sweat first” Saleh began. We had a guy in 2000—I want to say, I think it was ’23, maybe ’22, Al Woods. Who is just as big, just as fast, just as fleet of foot. Obviously, it’s going to be different, we’re going to ask things of him that are different than what he’s done in the past, but one thing he has shown on tape is he can get numbers-to-numbers, which we need our D-line to be able to do.”

This is referencing Sweat’s ability to build a shocking head of steam for his size to track down players scrambling to get around him outside the numbers.

“They need to be able to run, and that is something that he can do” Saleh continued. “He’s a big man. He’s got much faster feet than people realize. Is it going to be easy for him? It’s not. It is a lot of work. It is physically demanding to play D-line in our system. But I do think he’s up to the task. I’ve had great conversations with him and I’m excited to see him get to work.”

Saleh’s general approach on the DL is chaos and jet fuel. The system is about getting up field as fast as possible, and not reading and reacting as much. Al Woods is a good case study for a player of Sweat’s size working in this system. The longtime vet was dealing with injuries on and off through seven weeks in 2023 when he tore his achilles in Week 8, ending his season. In the games where he wasn’t banged up, he was playing healthy snap count workloads (35, 41, 47) and producing well. And he was a 35 year old in year 13 then. Sweat is 24 years old entering year 3. Woods was also on a defensive line that was a lot more crowded with talent that rotated in and out than Sweat currently is.

The point is, good coaches find a way to use and maximize good players. And T’Vondre Sweat is a good player. As long as he’s all-in off the field, Saleh and Co. need to find a way to make him a valuable part of this defense. And it sounds like they will.

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