Jeffery Simmons took a deep breath in front of his locker and winced as if his next words might fall on deaf ears.
The Tennessee Titans veteran defensive tackle still believes coach Robert Saleh has the right plan despite an 0-5 start his first season in Nashville, despite widespread criticism after Week 5’s 26-3 home loss to the Houston Texans.
“It comes down to the locker room. How can we continue to push the message the head coach is preaching? And quite frankly, it’s there,” Simmons said on Oct. 14. “I don’t know how to keep putting it. The message is clear, we just have to do it.”
Simmons puts the onus on players to find success. Tennessee is 6-33 since 2023.
But Saleh's role matters greatly, and he believes turnaround efforts at past stops,
and confidants he still has from those staffs, play to his advantage.
A struggling 2017 San Francisco 49ers team
Saleh has been with teams that bottomed-out the way the Titans did in Week 5.
He joined San Francisco as defensive coordinator in 2017 after the team went 7-25 in two previous seasons. The 49ers started 0-9 with two overtime losses, and Saleh’s defense gave up 265 yards rushing in a 40-10 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Week 7.
“They beat the breaks off us. Just beat us in all three phases. A huge step back,” Saleh said.
San Francisco won six of its next seven games to finish the year. That didn’t translate to success the following season — the 49ers went 4-12 — but Saleh’s theory that NFL rebuilds are non-linear proved correct when the 2019 team went 13-3 and reached the Super Bowl.
“When you’re trying to flip something that’s been bad for so long … A lot of these guys don’t know about the history of the organization,” Saleh said. “They just know what the current home is, so you’re trying to educate them on what it takes to win football games.”
Seattle Seahawks ‘Legion of Boom’ started as Legion of Gloom
Saleh didn’t have a major leadership role during the Seattle Seahawks’ resurgence but played his part as a defensive quality control assistant from 2011-13.
The Seahawks went through a 23-41 stretch from 2008-11 before its “Legion of Boom” defense took shape, ranking No. 1 in the league in points allowed from 2012-15. Seattle made back-to-back Super Bowl appearances and the 2013 team won a Super Bowl.
Prior to that, Seattle fielded one of the league’s worst defenses each season from 2008-10, ranking 24th or below in points and yards allowed.
“The ‘Legion of Boom’ was not the ‘Legion of Boom’ when we got there,” Saleh said.
Robert Saleh hasn’t proven he can replicate those as coach
It’s the resume blemish Saleh wants to erase: He hasn’t gotten an organization over the hump in five years as an NFL coach.
Saleh believes he was close with the New York Jets, even if outsiders view it as a stretch. He went 20-36 overall.
New York started the 2022 season 6-3 after a 4-13 season in his debut but lost seven of eight games after the bye week.
There were high hopes in 2023 before Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon in the season opener against the Buffalo Bills. New York started 4-3 before losing seven of its next 10 games, and the Jets fired him after a 2-3 start the next season.
Saleh has much to prove before saying he can do the same with the Tennessee Titans. But Titan players who have witnessed major personnel turnover since the 2023 season appreciate his consistency.
Publicly, Saleh’s as calm one day as the next.
“I done been through three coaching changes now. I’ve been around guys who’ve helped me on my leadership side of things,” Simmons said. “I’m truly bought into what he’s preaching.”
Tyler Palmateer covers the Tennessee Titans for The Tennessean. Have a story idea for Tyler? Reach him at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, @tpalmateer83.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why Tennessee Titans coach Robert Saleh believes adversity as assistant can lead to wins
