By Tucker Bagley, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 
As a disciple of Bill Cowher, Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Ray Horton is known for tailoring his game plans to get after the quarterback early and often. So it's not a huge assumption that when the Eagles announced rookie Carson Wentz would be starting, Horton's eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store.
Last season, Horton spent the year as the defensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans, who just so happened to open their season against a rookie quarterback, Jameis Winston. Horton made life miserable for the first-overall pick as the Titans defense sacked Winston four times, intercepted two of his passes and held him to quarterback rating of 64.0.
Horton will probably borrow a lot of his game plan for Sunday from that performance, considering it was probably the best outing his defense had all season.
Horton's QB pressure often doesn't come from blitzes, instead he sends intricate pressure, filled with twists and stunts from his defensive linemen, like the play below:
Jurrell Casey twists around the left guard before stunting toward the inside, smashing through Doug Martin and the right guard and sacking Winston. The Buccaneers offensive line did Winston no favors in this game and struggled mightily, but the Eagles may face the same problem with an offensive line that played just one series together in the preseason before Lane Johnson was demoted while the team waited for his pending suspension. Horton's complicated system could give the Eagles fits if the line is unable to gel quickly.
It is certainly an interesting contrast to Jim Schwartz's straightforward system that will be on the field Sunday. Schwartz's defense thrives on letting players fly around and make plays on the ball. Meanwhile, Horton prefers his players to think a bit more and react to what is in front of them in order to make the proper decision. You can see that on this play taken from the second quarter of that Titans-Bucs game:
The Buccaneers run play action and try to get Winston on the run, away from the pocket and the pressure. While three of the Titans defensive linemen follow the ball and the action, Derrick Morgan remains disengaged and follows the leaking running back before breaking on Winston and forcing the incomplete pass.
The Browns defense isn't exactly filled with wily veterans like Morgan who read and react, so they may not be able to execute on the same level as the Titans did a year ago.
The things that really bothered Winston was how the Titans were able to sort of slow the game down and force the rookie to dissect their coverages while his offensive line was chasing their stunting defensive linemen. Wentz's biggest attributes are physical and he remains a bit immature mentally. The Browns potential for pressuring him with just four, disciplined linemen is scary. If Wentz is unable to run around and make plays on the fly, he could fall into a few traps and make some bad throws.
Now, don't take this as a warning that the Browns defense is an elite unit that will cause trouble for Doug Pederson's squad on Sunday afternoon. But Horton knows what he is doing and could make Wentz's NFL debut a bit rougher than some of us thought.
