JACKSONVILLE – Some specifics have yet to be specified.

But while Anthony Campanile is still in his early days as Jaguars defensive coordinator, he said this week he knows one thing for sure:

The Jaguars' defense will be tough. Always.

"We're going to play our asses off," he said, adding of Jacksonville: "It's a tough city. There are tough people here. We're going to have a tough defense.

"To me, that was important. I'm super-excited about the whole thing."

Campanile, hired by new head coach Liam Coen last week, spoke to Jaguars Media this week and covered multiple topics. Among them: Just how ready he feels for his first opportunity to be an NFL defensive coordinator.

"I feel very ready," said Campanile, who previously called plays while the defensive coordinator at Boston College in 2018. "I feel like I've been working my whole life for this."

He added of play-calling duties, "I feel like I'm a guy people could lean on over the years on the headset during a game. That's something I'm really, really excited about."

Coen added that he feels "really good about the [defensive] roster," which he said he has strengths on the perimeter, on the edges and inside.

"We have some tough, physical guys," he said. "I'm excited to bring our playstyle here and get to work with these guys to create a great atmosphere."

Campanile said while discussing defenses in the current NFL in terms of 4-3 or 3-4 alignment is a bit antiquated, the Jaguars' scheme will have elements of both approaches. He said the scheme perhaps could be described "as a 4-3 with some 3-4 spacing," but that it is best described as "multiple."

"We want to put the best guys we have out there," he said. "There will be front variation. There will be coverage variation. We're going to test the protection on third down. There will be a lot of multiplicity to what we do in terms of simulators, pressure. That's what I can tell you.

"Structurally, you can get to any of those things and it really has more to do with people that are on the field. If you look at a lot of the systems I've been in, you could say, 'That's a 3-4,' and we're in four-down linemen half the time.

"We're going to be a run-and-hit defense. One thing you're going to see is guys playing with a passion to not stay blocked."

Campanile, who spent last season as the Green Bay Packers' linebackers coach/defensive run-game coordinator, said more important than scheme is "playstyle."

"The schemes are all great," he said. "It all works. People have different types of scheme and they're all good. But at the end of the day, it's about who's playing violent at the point of attack.

"If you can stand being blocked, you're going to get blocked. We have guys who believe in not being blocked. We have guys who run to the ball. We have guys who violently finish at the point of attack. That's what's going to be valued here."

The Packers in 2024 – Campanile's lone season with the team – ranked seventh in the NFL in '24 in run defense at 99.35 yards per game and third in the NFL at 4.0 yards per attempt allowed. They ranked sixth in the NFL in points allowed in '24 (19.9) and fifth in yards allowed (314.5).

Campanile served under first-year Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, and called the experience "really just stripping a system down and building it back up" and "building a system essentially from scratch."

"It was basically an amalgam of a few systems that we put together, places I had been, places Jeff had been," he said. "We kind of came to a middle ground on a lot of things. It was really a fun experience that way."

Campanile during early discussions with Jaguars players said he has emphasized "a culture of honesty and accountability."

"I mean that for myself, first and foremost," he said. "I'm going to work my ass off every day. I'm going to come in this building with a passion to win. They can expect that. I'm going to be passionate when I get up in front of them.

"There is going to be a culture of irrational competitors and compassionate people. That's it. That's what I want. I want guys who are just totally irrational when it comes to winning and losing – and who care about people.

"You're going to be at your best when you're doing things for people you love. Your objective on a unit is to try and get everybody as close to that as you possible can. If you have an emotional connection to what you're doing, then you're better."

"It's a hard game. It's about people. You win with people. To me, everything else is [bs]. That's what I think. I don't know if I can give that answer, but in reality that's it. It's about people.

QUOTABLE

• Campanile: "The old adage … talk is cheap – that definitely applies to football. It's what you do every day. It's not what you say. Giving guys every ounce you have every day, being invested in their success, creating a culture of people that care about each other, that love each other, that play hard for each other, that finish every rep for each other, that's how you earn trust."