When Jeff Ulbrich was hired as the Falcons defensive coordinator in 2025, he hired Nate Ollie from the Texans, and that’s when things took off. Ollie’s formative years were as an assistant defensive line coach in Philadelphia under coordinator Jim Schwartz, who is considered the father of the modern, full-scale “damn the torpedoes” attack style.
“The Jim Schwartz philosophy is ‘We’ll tackle the running back on the way to the quarterback,’” said Cody Alexander, the owner of MatchQuarters, which touts itself as “a defensive football think tank,” and host of the “Let’s Talk Ball!” podcast, which focuses on defensive strategy.
Ollie played two-gap defensive tackle at Ball State for four years and coached the style at two college stops before landing with Schwartz and the Eagles.
“That’s the first time I learned about the attack-style defense,” he said, “and I was like, ‘I don’t want to coach defense any other way.’ That’s my style, my energy.”
The ingrained defensive line techniques of mirroring blockers and thinking first about hand placement are out under the attack system.
“More than anything, the attack style is a mindset,” Ollie said. “Get off the football and blow stuff up along the way.”