{"id":758269,"date":"2026-02-17T12:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/758269\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:50:12","slug":"tennessee-titans-lose-defensive-assistant-travis-smith-to-the-raiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/758269\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Titans lose defensive assistant Travis Smith to the Raiders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 17, 2026, 5:09 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

Just days after finalizing his initial coaching staff with the Tennessee Titans<\/a>, head coach Robert Saleh will have to make some slight adjustments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Monday, NFL Insider Adam Schefter reported that the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> hired senior defensive assistant\/pass rush specialist Travis Smith as their defensive line coach under their new head coach, Klint Kubiak.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Smith, who was a holdover from Brian Callahan\u2019s 2025 staff, spent his first season with the Titans serving as the defensive run game coordinator, a position now being held by new defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This will be a homecoming of sorts for Smith, who spent 10 seasons (2012-2021) with the Raiders, working his way up their coaching ranks, holding multiple coaching roles during his tenure before moving on to the Chicago Bears<\/a> in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There was no word out of the Titans’ facility on their plans to fill the pass rush specialist role. But it is possible that it will be a topic at the coordinator’s press conference on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 17, 2026, 5:09 a.m. ET Just days after finalizing his initial coaching staff with the Tennessee Titans,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2061],"tags":[95878,7,6,96009,96010,95882,96089,95885,95896,95888,95895,95897,95975,95884,95883,95889,526,394,2411,527,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-758269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sstssportsnfltitans","12":"tag-sstsntitans","13":"tag-tagamerican-football","14":"tag-tagchicago-bears","15":"tag-taglas-vegas-raiders","16":"tag-tagnational-sports","17":"tag-tagnfl","18":"tag-tagnfl-hub","19":"tag-tagoverall-negative","20":"tag-tagrobert-saleh","21":"tag-tagsports-coaching-training","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-tagtennessee-titans","24":"tag-tennessee","25":"tag-tennessee-titans","26":"tag-tennesseetitans","27":"tag-titans","28":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116086061771220944","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}