Titans camp report: Chuck your preconceived notions about defense

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Where's the lunatic coach? He has to be out on the field somewhere, screaming and yelling and losing his mind, throwing things, getting so close to his players' faces they can smell hints of what he had breakfast.

So you scan the Tennessee Titans practice field in search of this coach. Surely, your ears will bring you to him. If not that, the visual of a projectile being tossed to the ground.

Chuck Cecil, the supposed crazy man, played in the league as a hard-hitting safety with a violent streak. Few can forget the burned-in image of blood gushing out of his nose. So doesn't that translate to his coaching style?

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Think again. The former safety with the noisy game is really a calm, quiet coach.

In his first year as the Titans' defensive coordinator, taking over for Jim Schwartz, who left to become head coach of the Detroit Lions, Cecil isn't the package some expect.

"The outbursts at this point in camp, from last year to this year for Jim to Chuck, is five to one for Jim," Titans coach Jeff Fisher said.

"Oh yeah, five to one easily," Pro Bowl corner Cortland Finnegan said. "Chuck doesn't believe in embarrassing a player and yelling. His isn't the most eloquent way, but he gets right to the point. Schwartz was over the place and anal. We appreciate the way Chuck does it."

Cecil takes over a defense that returns 10 of 11 starters and finished second in points allowed at 14.6 per game last season. The biggest issue for him is the player who isn't there. That would be Albert Haynesworth, the Pro Bowl defensive tackle who was the league's most dominant interior player in 2008.

Haynesworth left Tennessee to sign a $100 million deal with the Washington Redskins, leaving a 335-pound void in the middle of the Tennessee defense.

But the Titans seem to be OK without the big guy. And it appears to be a real belief, much more than just lip service.

"Replacing him will be a group effort," Cecil said. "We have as good a group of defensive tackles as we've had here. It's not like Albert was an every-down player."

Cecil was not alone in pointing that out. Fisher did, too, saying Haynesworth played in 50 percent of the snaps most of his time in Tennessee, a little more last season in his contract year. Finnegan and safety Chris Hope, players in the same huddle with Haynesworth, also mentioned his not playing every down. Of course they would love to have him, but they have played and won some big games without him.

Look at the game last Dec. 21 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Haynesworth didn't play, but replacement Jason Jones, then a rookie, had three sacks as the Titans beat the Steelers in the stomp-on-the-Terrible Towel game.

"He was a family member, a teammate and a friend," Finnegan said of Haynesworth. "It's hard losing that. But at the same time, we played without him and won. Yes, he's going to be missed, but we've already proven we can win without him."

The Titans will use five tackles in the rotation. Tony Brown, an underrated player who started next to Haynesworth, will again start. Jones will likely be alongside Brown. But Jovan Haye, signed away from Tampa Bay as a free agent, Kevin Vickerson and rookie Sen'Derrick Marks will also get time.

Haynesworth forced people to double him, especially last season, which helped the others on the line get pressure. Schwartz didn't have to pressure much with blitzes last season, but some of the Titans players think that will change with Cecil.

"He wants to put his patch on the defense," Hope said. "Being the physical player he was -- a lot of coaches who were players call games they way they played. So I think we will probably be more aggressive. As players you like that. You want to do the dictating, rather than the other way."

Hope might be jumping the gun on his thinking that Cecil's defense will take on his playing-days persona.

"The funny thing to me is that people think my so-called reputation as a player is going to dictate what we call on defense," Cecil said. "My personality isn't going to guide us. What I'm going to do is depending on what my players are doing and what the offense is doing. The biggest misnomer is that I'm going to be blitzing all the time."

Sorry, Chuck. That's the second biggest. Lunatic coach is the first.

Even he understands where that originates. He was regarded as one of the hardest-hitting safeties in the game when he played for Green Bay, Arizona and the Houston Oilers. The bloodied noses came often and were always there for us to see, a reminder of the brutality of the game -- and a reminder of just how crazy Cecil played the game.

By the way, the nose was broken 10 times and never fixed.

"I snore a lot," he said.

So he's loud in sleep, quiet in work.

"That's just not my way, to be in the players' faces, jumping all around," Cecil said. "I have too much respect and admiration of what I'm asking the players to do. It's really hard to play in the NFL. I know. What the players do is amazing. I'm as much a fan as I am a coach. I have mad love and respect for my players. So I try and treat them thusly."

Loud. Crazy. In your face. They are not who Cecil is as a coach. So don't go to Titans practices or games looking for that.

What you'll find instead is a coordinator with an easy approach and a cerebral thinking who just might be on the fast track to becoming an NFL head coach.