Brian Callahan’s firing continues a troubling trend for Titans regarding organizational continuity

The Tennessee Titans made a necessary change on Monday, firing coach Brian Callahan after a 1-5 start to the season. Frankly, the move had to be made given how the team had looked under Callahan both during this dreadful start and his entire 4-19 tenure with the organization. 

The offense, Callahan’s supposed calling card, was a mess for his whole time at the helm. Tennessee ranked 31st in yards and 29th in points during his tenure, as well as 31st in TruMedia’s EPA per play. This season they were even worse, checking in last in yards per game, second-to-last in points per game and last in EPA per play. They were a bad passing offense and only a marginally better rushing offense in each season. 

They looked lost, and that was true whether it was Will Levis or Mason Rudolph or Cam Ward at quarterback, and whether Callahan himself was calling plays as he did through Week 3 of this season or whether it was quarterbacks coach Bo Hardegree, to whom he ceded that responsibility for Weeks 4 through 6. 

An offensive coach whose offense looks terrible is always going to be on this ice to begin with. When he then gives up play-calling and takes on more of a CEO-type role, his other attributes come under more scrutiny. And somehow, Callahan’s game management strategies might have been even worse than the offense. He was conservative to a fault at almost all times, and he directly cost his team points in at least two games this season. 

Against Denver in Week 1, with 47 seconds remaining in the half, Callahan called three consecutive pass plays inside his own 10-yard line. The team seemingly did not know the play on the first pass and the next two each fell incomplete and the Titans gave the ball back to the Broncos. It did not take them long to score a touchdown. Instead of holding a surprising lead at the break, the Titans tailed, and they wouldn’t come back. 

Callahan also seemingly didn’t know the rule that having an elbow down inbounds on a catch attempt was the same as getting two feet down, and he failed to challenge a catch by Elic Ayomanor in that same game. He claimed afterward to have misspoke, but he still failed to realize the potential for a big gain in real time. In a close contest, that could have helped his team stage a comeback or even avoid going down in the first place. 

Two weeks later, the Titans had a chance to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the 39-yard line against the Colts. Callahan even had time to think about it because the Colts called a timeout. But even after that, he was unsure of what to do and called a timeout himself. He elected for the field goal instead of going for it, but the Titans didn’t get the ball snapped in time and took a delay of game penalty. Joe Slye missed from 62 yards out and left enough time on the clock for Indy to drive for a field goal of its own. 

But we’re not necessarily here to talk about the faults of Callahan alone. We’re here because the Titans are now stuck in a bad cycle — one where their coach and their general manager and their quarterback are not aligned in terms of the time they came to the organization. And it’s a cycle they’ve been stuck in for a while now. 

As NFL Media’s Greg Rosenthal noted, the Titans in 2022 fired former general manager Jon Robinson amidst an alleged power struggle with then-coach Mike Vrabel. The team hired Ran Carthon to take his place, but it was Vrabel who seemingly had the power in the organization at first. That only lasted until 2024, when the team fired Vrabel amidst an alleged power struggle with Carthon. They hired Callahan in Vrabel’s place, only to then fire Carthon following last season. With Callahan still at the helm, the Titans hired Mike Borgonzi as their new GM, but now Callahan is gone as well.

During this time, the Titans have also been cycling through quarterbacks. It was Ryan Tannehill under center for much of the Vrabel era, but injuries and ineffectiveness led to the team drafting potential successors in both Malik Willis and Levis. Willis never caught on, but Levis was given the chance to start in 2023. He didn’t fare all that well, and then Vrabel was gone at the end of the year. Callahan took the job with a quarterback already in place, but then Levis was a disaster and was benched in favor of Rudolph. 

The Titans landed the No. 1 overall pick, which they used on Ward. He’s struggled to start his rookie year as the team has failed to put him in position to succeed due to horrific offensive line play, copious amounts of drops and a system that provides no easy answers, and he hasn’t been the type of rising tide that lifts all boats that some other rookies have been in recent years. But now the coach that drafted Ward is gone, too, which means that whomever the Titans hire next will also not have drafted the quarterback that he’s asked to develop.

Add it all up and you begin to see a disturbing pattern: there’s no alignment of timelines for the arguably the three most important figures in the organization. Robinson hired Vrabel, but Vrabel outlasted him into the Carthon era. Carthon didn’t hire Vrabel, but outlasted him and began the Callahan era. Carthon hired Callahan, but Callahan outlasted him into the Borgonzi era. And now Borgonzi will have to hire a new head coach after just one season on the job. 

This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be — at least not unless one general manager or coach is there year after year because he is so successful, and the other position is changing over. You’re also not supposed to have multiple coaches beginning their tenures with a starting quarterback already in place — at least not unless you know that quarterback is your guy and you’re simply searching for the right coach to get your team over the top. 

The Titans are going about just about everything the wrong way. It’s no wonder they’ve looked like a mess.