Shedeur Sanders prank call surrounding his son<\/a> in the rearview mirror, Ulbrich can get back to focusing on a monumental task ahead of him: trying to fix the Atlanta Falcons\u2019 porous defense. The Falcons have consistently been one of the worst defensive teams over the past decade and have tried to fix that by drafting both linebacker Jalon Walker and defensive end James Pearce Jr. in the first round of last month’s NFL Draft. Ulbrich is the second defensive coordinator in two years for head coach Raheem Morris, who should be trying to do his best to turn it around considering the Falcons’ front office has been stuck in the mud during this era of the franchise. The Falcons are a bit light in the front seven, so they\u2019ll need the expertise of Ulbrich and Morris to put them in advantageous spots.<\/p>\nDennis Allen, Chicago Bears<\/p>\n
The Bears have a lineup of talented defensive players, but they didn\u2019t always play like that last season. Especially after they had their hearts broken by the Commanders on the infamous Hail Mary that was a turning point in both of their seasons. With, hopefully, a bit more support from the offensive side of the ball, the Bears’ defense won\u2019t be in as many perilous situations as they were last season. Allen did a great job coordinating the Saints’ defense even as the talent deteriorated over the years, so the Bears’ defense should be in for a big boost with Allen calling plays. They\u2019ll probably need it as Caleb Williams and the offense continues to gel in their first year with Ben Johnson as the offensive play-caller.<\/p>\n
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Kelvin Sheppard, Detroit Lions<\/p>\n
Staying in the NFC North, the Lions have had a defensive coordinator change as well after losing Aaron Glenn to the Jets\u2019 head coaching vacancy. For a team that very much still has Super Bowl aspirations this season, it\u2019ll be imperative that the Lions hit the ground running and get back to playing strong defense, which eluded them at the end of last season as the injuries piled up. Unlike Ulbrich and Allen, this will be Sheppard\u2019s first time as a defensive coordinator and he’ll have the chance to imprint his name upon the Lions\u2019 defense. He got some reinforcements with free agent signing D.J. Reed, first-round pick Tyleik Williams and the return of star edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson from injury \u2014 the cupboard isn\u2019t bare, but now it\u2019s time to see what Sheppard can do.<\/p>\n
Anthony Campanile, Jacksonville Jaguars<\/p>\n
Here’s another first-year defensive coordinator. For a team that just had one of the worst records in the NFL, the Jaguars have some surprisingly high goals for the upcoming season. In a division where any of the four teams seem to have a shot to win it, it\u2019s crucial the Jaguars\u2019 new coaching staff gets up to speed immediately. They\u2019re not really as barren talent-wise as one might expect for a team that\u2019s won as few games as they have over the past few years, but one of these years they\u2019re going to have to cash in on the talent they\u2019ve collected through the draft. Campanile has a tall task on his hands, but with players like Josh Hines-Allen, Travon Walker, Foye Oluokun, Tyson Campbell and spurts of Travis Hunter, they\u2019ll have a good shot to at least improve from where they were a year ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some NFL teams need to get back to basics on defense, which could be why many of them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1817,254,1036,391,427,317,2792,22209,8897,113,7,8947,125,1486,2662,226,1829,14986,6,15,2663,17,128,1827,1491,7872],"class_list":{"0":"post-76362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-aidan-hutchinson","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-caleb-williams","11":"tag-chicago-bears","12":"tag-commanders","13":"tag-d-j-reed","14":"tag-defensive-coordinator","15":"tag-defensive-teams","16":"tag-dennis-allen","17":"tag-detroit-lions","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-foye-oluokun","20":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","21":"tag-jalon-walker","22":"tag-jeff-ulbrich","23":"tag-jets","24":"tag-josh-hines-allen","25":"tag-kelvin-sheppard","26":"tag-nfl","27":"tag-nfl-draft","28":"tag-raheem-morris","29":"tag-shedeur-sanders","30":"tag-travis-hunter","31":"tag-travon-walker","32":"tag-tyleik-williams","33":"tag-tyson-campbell"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114564944627594658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76362","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=76362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}