The New York Giants have the most important piece of the puzzle in place in John Harbaugh, but now they need to fill out the rest of the coaching staff. He is planning to basically gut the entire coaching staff, especially on defense, and his Ravens ties are carrying the load in the early days of the search.
The Giants have been linked to some early DC candidates, many of whom have coached with Harbaugh in the past. Anthony Weaver has emerged as the favorite if he doesn’t land a head coaching job, but things may have just been complicated by the Tennessee Titans, who aren’t retaining DC Dennard Wilson on Robert Saleh’s new coaching staff.
Defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson is not being retained by the #Titans and Robert Saleh.
— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) January 22, 2026
Wilson was a top DC candidate for the Giants’ defensive coordinator opening in 2024, when they hired Shane Bowen, so Joe Schoen has a chance to right that wrong. However, Wilson also has ties to the veteran head coach, as he was a top defensive assistant under Harbaugh in Baltimore back in 2023.
Expect ex-Ravens’ assistant Dennard Wilson to receive an interview for the Giants’ DC opening
The Titans’ defense took a huge step back this season, but the 43-year-old was calling plays for a secondary full of injuries. The offense also didn’t do him any favors, because for as impressive as Cam Ward was, the supporting cast and play-calling (moreso under Brian Callahan) were both genuinely putrid.
As a first-year DC in 2024, Wilson and the Titans ranked second in the NFL in total defense despite not working with a secondary brimming with talent. The Giants’ secondary desperately needs someone to tap into their potential after the Bowen fiasco, and Wilson could end up being just that.
Related: Giants finally make long-overdue defensive course correction under John Harbaugh
More importantly, his ties to the Super Bowl-winning head coach have seen him emerge as a legit candidate. He spent 2023 as the DBs coach in Baltimore, a season in which the Ravens finished sixth in the NFL in pass defense and Kyle Hamilton was named a Pro Bowl for the first time in his career.
The year before that, he coached DBs with the Eagles, and they boasted the NFL’s best pass defense from a yardage standpoint. Wilson has an incredibly strong track record of coaching defensive backs, and the Harbaugh connection will certainly land him an interview, even if he’s not the frontrunner.
The Giants badly need a promising defensive mind to turn around a defense that looked awful a season ago, and Wilson deserves a look. Then again, he’s not the most experienced DC candidate, so maybe he still joins the staff to coach the secondary and reunite with Harbaugh in New York.
