The NFL’s 2025 Defensive Play-Caller Dark Horse Set to Shake Up the League—Who Will Dominate?

Eleven new defensive play-callers are stepping into the spotlight this NFL season, ushering in a seismic shift on the gridiron’s less glamorous but absolutely crucial side of the ball. Some defenses rocked the league last year, while others were… well, let’s just say they could use a serious makeover. With defenses often being the silent architects behind Super Bowl triumphs—remember, over the past dozen title games, only three losing teams cracked the 25-point barrier—these fresh faces have a mountain to climb. Will these coordinators, a mix of seasoned veterans, former head coaches trying to reclaim glory, and rookies hungry for their breakout moment, be the catalyst their new teams desperately need? Or will some struggles persist despite the coaching shake-up? Buckle up—it’s not just X’s and O’s; it’s about whether these defensive masterminds can rewrite the fate of entire franchises in the 2025 campaign. LEARN MORE

With 11 new defensive play-callers making the key decisions, there’s significant change on that side of the ball in the 2025 season. Some of the defensive units were outstanding and some were awful last year, while others just need a fresh coat of paint.

It’s not an understatement to say defense plays a huge role in what team wins the Super Bowl every year.

Over the past 12 Super Bowls, the losing team has scored at least 25 points only three times.

Every defense chases such championship level.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that 11 NFL teams have switched defensive play-callers ahead of the 2025 season. (Conversely, there are 12 new offensive play-callers across the league.)

Some were brought in with entirely new coaching staffs, while others have replaced defensive coordinators who were fired following poor seasons. The group is also a nice mix of former head coaches who are better served running one side of the ball, former coordinators on new teams or first-timers who were either internally promoted or brought on from other staffs.

Let’s take a look at the new NFL defensive play-callers and how they could affect their new teams.

The Former Head Coaches

Sometimes, coaches are better off as coordinators. Just look at Vance Joseph (Denver Broncos), Vic Fangio (Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles) and Jim Schwartz (Cleveland Browns). Those three DCs, who’ve spent time as head coaches in previous seasons, had units that finished with the second-, third- and fourth-best defensive success rates in 2024.

So, too, strives this group of five new defensive play-callers – also in coordinator roles – heading into the 2025 season: Robert Saleh (San Francisco 49ers); Dennis Allen (Chicago Bears); Brandon Staley (New Orleans Saints); Steve Wilks (New York Jets); and Matt Eberflus (Dallas Cowboys).

Some of them had a little bit of success as head coaches, but all of them were eventually fired, and they’re now back with a previous franchise or an entirely new one.

Saleh and Allen didn’t see too much deviation in defensive success rate from when they were a head coach versus a defensive coordinator.

Saleh, who was the defensive coordinator of the 49ers from 2017 to 2020, continued the defensive structure that thrived in San Francisco before he took on the Jets’ head role. Allen was already with the Saints as their defensive coordinator for seven seasons before he was elevated to head coach after Sean Payton stepped down in 2022.

What can we glean from their failures as head coaches? Saleh and Allen were clearly great at building up only one side of the ball more than a whole team.

Staley and Wilks also are clearly much better defensive play-callers than head coaches. However, their team’s defensive success rates dropped steeply when they handed over the controls.

It also should be noted that Staley was only a defensive coordinator for one season before becoming head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. Wilks bounced back between defensive coordinator and head coach after stints with the Carolina Panthers (DC in 2017; passing game coordinator, then interim head coach in 2022), Arizona Cardinals (one-year head coach in 2018), Browns (DC in 2019) and 49ers (DC in 2023).

Eberflus is a bit of an enigma. He saw a minimal difference in success rate between his time as a head coach and a defensive coordinator, but he had two solid seasons with the Indianapolis Colts when his defense ranked in the top 10 in points allowed per game in both 2020 and ‘21.

The 2025 schedule will help some defensive play-callers more than others. Saleh and the 49ers are facing the easiest schedule based off last season’s records, just ahead of Staley and the Saints. Allen and the Bears face a schedule that’s tied for the second hardest.

The Recyled

The Atlanta Falcons’ Jeff Ulbrich and the Colts’ Lou Anarumo are the two other newly hired NFL defensive play-callers with experience in the position.

Ulbrich has five years under his belt, four years of which were with the Jets under Saleh and one as interim defensive coordinator for the Falcons in 2020 under Raheem Morris, who was the team’s interim head coach that year, then took the full reins prior to the 2024 season.

Anarumo was the Cincinnati Bengals’ defensive coordinator for the past six seasons and also served in an interim role with the Miami Dolphins in 2015.

Ulbrich was a solid defensive coordinator for the Jets when he and Saleh built the defense into one of the best units in the NFL. However, Ulbrich’s units weren’t necessarily better than the ones that preceded him.

The Jets ranked fifth or better in yards allowed from 2022-24, but they were outside the top 10 in points allowed in three of Ulbrich’s four years in New York. It didn’t help that Ulbrich was promoted to interim head coach after Week 5 last season (they went 3-9 the rest of the way).

Ulbrich returns to Atlanta now to help bolster a defense that last season had the fourth-worst success rate under Morris and then-defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake. In this year’s NFL Draft, the Falcons selected two first-round edge rushers (Georgia linebacker Jalon Walker and Tennessee defensive end James Pearce Jr.) with the goal of elevating the defense in the competitive NFC South.

As for Anarumo, his defenses were all over the place in Cincinnati. The Bengals’ best defensive showings were in 2021 and ’22, but otherwise fluctuated in overall success rate, run defense success rate and pass defense success rate throughout his tenure.

Indianapolis’ 43.7% pass success rate allowed ranked fourth-worst in the NFL last season. And passing defense isn’t Anarumo’s strong suit given what his units looked like in Cincinnati – especially in the past two years.

So while Anarumo is one of the more-experienced new defensive coordinators in the NFL, his fit will be interesting for new Colts head coach Shane Steichen.

The Colts tried to beef up their secondary with key free-agent signings Charvarius Ward (cornerback) and Camryn Bynum (safety) as well as third-round draft pick Justin Walley (cornerback).

The First-Timers

Some teams opted for fresh faces to take on their defensive controls in 2025.

This list of four consists of a former NFL player with a few years of coaching experience (Kelvin Sheppard of the Detroit Lions), promoted assistants (Terrell Williams with the New England Patriots and Anthony Campanile with the Jacksonville Jaguars), and a former college defensive coordinator and head coach (Al Golden with the Bengals).

Oddly enough, all four of these coordinators were either a linebacker coach or run game coordinator, or both.

Sheppard was a long-time NFL linebacker who then joined the Lions in 2021 as outside linebackers coach under head coach Dan Campbell and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. While it’s hard to directly correlate the Lions’ defensive success to Sheppard’s coaching, their linebackers from 2021 to ’24 had a run disruption rate of 7.5%, a pressure rate of 20.3% and a burn rate allowed of 51.7% – all of which were above or at league average during that time.

Williams, coincidentally, joined the Patriots after he spent the 2024 season as Detroit’s defensive line coach and run game coordinator. His other NFL experience is as a defensive line coach, mostly worked under now-Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel with the Tennessee Titans from 2018 to ’23 and previously for the Dolphins and the then-Oakland Raiders.

Campanile coached linebackers under a few different coordinators with the Dolphins, including Brian Flores, Josh Boyer and Vic Fangio, before he joined Jeff Hafley’s defensive staff in Green Bay as a linebackers coach and run game coordinator. The Packers’ 2024 run defense ranked 12th in success rate at 35.3% and tied for fifth in rush yards allowed per play at 3.9, but it ranked 19th in run disruption rate at 65.9%.

Golden is the true wild card after moving over from college football. He spent the past three seasons as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator: Last year, the Fighting Irish had the 16th-best FBS defensive success rate at 34.5%, a mark that ranked fifth among teams that allowed at least 900 total plays. He has some NFL experience as Cincinnati’s linebackers coach under the then-DC Anarumo in 2020 and ’21.

This eclectic group of NFL defensive play-callers inherit a wide spectrum of units. Some were outstanding and some were awful in 2024, while some just need a fresh coat of paint before they compete in 2025.

The hope for these teams is that a new set of eyes will enhance their respective defense.

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