New Titans DL has history with Preds’ Ellis

The time had come for Brent Urban to make a decision: 6-foot-7 on ice skates or 6-foot-7 plugging gaps? One made more sense than the other. Urban, a 300-pound defensive lineman whom the Titans signed to a oneyear deal in March, stayed with both hockey and football for as long as he could. The juggling act, though, was “kind of impacting my game in a negative way” as college approached, the 28-yearold said.

So Urban dropped hockey permanently – even after fielding several scholarship offers to hang with it – but not before a long and committed run with the sport helped sculpt a more coordinated, agile version of himself. In that way, Urban’s time on the ice was a significant part of his foundation athletically.

The Predators’ Ryan Ellis knows as well as anyone.

14 and 6-5

Ellis remembers thinking Urban had to be twice his age.

“I don’t know how tall he is now, but (Urban) was like 6-foot-5 when we were 14, 13 years old,” said Ellis, a defenseman. “I thought he was like 30.”

The two are four months apart in age and grew up about 40 miles apart in Canada, near Toronto. Before their pro careers took them to Nashville, their junior hockey days brought them together on the Mississauga Reps, an elite travel hockey team situated between their hometowns. They played together for a few years.

“He grew up about an hour from me, and we ended up kind of meeting in the middle and playing hockey,” Ellis said. “Great kid, great family, works extremely hard from what I remember. I mean, we were kids, but he works extremely hard and typical Canadian kid, I guess you could say.”

There was nothing typical about Urban’s frame, though. He was “developed and extremely coordinated for being as big a kid as he was,” Ellis said, but his size still worked to his detriment on the ice.

“I got a ton of penalties being the biggest guy,” Urban said. “I’d be going against guys who are 5-9, 5-7, you know, so I wasn’t able to use my physical traits as I should have.” Still, he was able to hone other traits. “Hockey is all lower body,” Urban said. “Everybody has big legs and able to push off very well. So I think that probably helped build up my lower body and make myself a little more mobile on aspects.”

‘A big, giant Canadian’

Titans defensive line coach Terrell Williams thinks the biggest thing about Urban isn’t his size.

“The biggest thing with him is he’s fit into our group. He’s a great kid, a great teammate, a ...” Williams began before stopping to correct himself. “He’s a big, giant Canadian, so I shouldn’t call him a kid.”

You get where Williams was going, though.

Urban started 16 games last season for the Ravens, though he didn’t turn any heads statistically with 0.5 sacks and 27 tackles.

He’ll provide the Titans with muchneeded depth in that regard as they wait to see whether first-round pick Jeffery Simmons returns from an ACL tear at the end of the season.

“There’s just always guys that you’re going to ask them to do things for the team that’s not necessarily going to put them in the limelight,” Titans defensive coordinator Dean Pees said. “They may not end up with all the numbers that everybody wants to see statistically, but are they doing what we’re asking them to do in the system to make the system work? … Brent’s that kind of a guy.”

Even better, Urban was familiar with Pees’ system even before he got off the plane in Nashville. Pees was the Ravens’ defensive coordinator when the team drafted Urban out of Virginia in the fourth round in 2014, and they overlapped in Baltimore for four seasons.

“He’s used to the verbiage and that kind of stuff. It’s been a pretty easy transition,” Pees said.

“I remember when we drafted him. This guy’s a hockey player from Canada. I mean, got to be pretty tough.”

A reunion in Nashville?

Urban takes a lot of pride in that – being tough, sure, but also being a Canadian in the NFL.

“There’s not many of us,” he said with a smile. “I like to represent where I’m from and show people back there that they can play in the NFL, too. Obviously I grew up playing hockey like everybody else out there, but yeah, it’s a big thing for me.”

So is hockey – still. Urban plans to check out the Predators at Bridgestone Arena next season.

“I’m a huge hockey fan,” he said, “so I’ll be in the building for sure when they start playing next year.”

Ellis, meanwhile, said he’ll “absolutely” try to reconnect with his childhood buddy, though the two haven’t been close for a while. They lost contact after their junior hockey days, for which Ellis takes the blame.