Titans Fire Brian Callahan: Inside another year of chaos in Tennessee

The first head coach firing of the 2025 NFL season took just six games, as the Tennessee Titans dispatched Brian Callahan on Monday after less than two seasons and a 4-19 overall record.

In a sign of the times, Callahan was one of the hottest coaching candidates available just two years ago. The offensive coordinator who didn’t call the plays for the Cincinnati Bengals, Callahan seemed primed for his shot. He is now the shortest tenured coach in franchise history since the early ’80s when the Oilers were still in Houston.

The Titans, despite having top pick Cam Ward under center this year, were regressing under Callahan, sources say. And the coach couldn’t get enough wins to stave off what began to look inevitable by the end of September.

“We had a head coach trying to be an offensive coordinator, but he had to learn how to be a head coach first,” a team source summed it up to CBS Sports recently. “We needed a head coach more than we needed a play caller.”

Mike McCoy will be the interim coach, and changes to practice and potentially staff are expected. McCoy, hired this past offseason as a senior offensive assistant, was the head coach of the San Diego Chargers from 2013 to 2016.

The first quarter of the season showed Callahan as a head coach who appeared overwhelmed at times. He failed to challenge a play that he didn’t know could be challenged in Week 1. He bungled an end-of-half situation against the Colts two weeks later. He surrendered play-calling duties to a lieutenant. He made gaffes at the podium, like saying it “wasn’t about the player” when the Titans traded Jarvis Brownlee. And there were the blowout, non-competitive losses. Callahan will go down as one of the least successful head coaches of the modern era. 

Worst record by HC, past 40 years (minimum of 20 games)

“After extended conversations with our owner and general manager, we met with Brian Callahan this morning to tell him we are making a change at head coach,” Titans president of football operations Chad Brinker said in a statement Monday. “These decisions are never easy, and they become more difficult when they involve people of great character. We are grateful for Brian’s investment in the Titans and Tennessee community during his tenure as head coach. We thank him and his family for being exemplary ambassadors of the Tennessee Titans.

“While we are committed to a patient and strategic plan to build a sustainable, winning football program, we have not demonstrated sufficient growth. Our players, fans, and community deserve a football team that achieves a standard we are not currently meeting, and we are committed to making the hard decisions necessary to reach and maintain that standard.”

After Sunday’s 20-10 defeat to the Raiders, what ownership didn’t want to do had to be done. The Titans will go the final 11 games with their underwhelming roster and makeshift coaching staff.

“There’s no savior [this year],” said a team source. “There’s no one who can stabilize the whole thing.”

The continuation of a Titans trend

Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk has gotten used to firing the people she has empowered to run her team.

She fired GM Jon Robinson three years ago after he never had a losing season (more on that later.) She canned Mike Vrabel a year later and he became one of the hottest coaching candidates in the league, and she will see him on Sunday when his New England Patriots come to town in Week 7. Robinson’s successor, Ran Carthon, got a pink slip after just two years in the chair — and one year after getting a contract extension. And now Callahan gets the boot after 23 games.

The Titans braintrust had interest in several candidates in 2024 when Callahan emerged as the pick. Then-Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald put on a strong initial interview but wasn’t chosen. Then-Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn interviewed with the team virtually but did not make the second round.

Quinn was just days removed from giving up 48 points at home to the Packers in the divisional round, and sources say Strunk couldn’t shake the stink of that plus the image of the 28-3 Super Bowl collapse when Quinn was the head coach of the Falcons.

Quinn didn’t have the strongest plan for his offensive coaching staff either. Kliff Kingsbury didn’t join the Washington staff until after leaving the Raiders and their unstable quarterback position over a “contract dispute” in favor of the Commanders, who held the No. 2 overall pick in that year’s draft.

The Titans landed on Callahan because his resume and interviews told the Titans he was ready. He had nearly a decade and a half of NFL coaching experience, and he joined Zac Taylor’s inaugural staff in Cincinnati as a non-play-calling offensive coordinator.

He went to a Super Bowl with the Bengals, and he had a plan for his coaching staff, one that included contingencies if a certain coach wouldn’t be available. A crown jewel of the staff would be his father, two-time NFL coach Bill Callahan, who is widely regarded as one of the best offensive line coaches in the game. The Cleveland Browns granted the senior Callahan permission to interview for the role despite the ability to prohibit such a lateral move for such an important coaching position.

But the Titans were so focused on a play-calling head coach and legendary offensive line coach that they failed in other areas of the staff. Callahan hired Colt Anderson as the special teams coordinator, and the Titans went on to have one of the worst seasons of all special teams groups in the league. He fired Anderson after the season and hired veteran John “Bones” Fassel.

Ahead of a Week 4 game against the Texans, Callahan relinquished play-calling duties and handed them to quarterbacks coach Bo Hardegree. While Hardegree had been the interim OC with the Raiders in 2023, the decision was still curious because Callahan skipped over offensive coordinator Nick Holz.

Holz was high school teammates with Callahan and began his coaching career when Bill Callahan gave him a quality control position at Nebraska. Brian Callahan hired his longtime friend as the non-play-calling OC in 2024, but then did not entrust the play calling duties to him when the time came. “Nick isn’t ready,” said one source.

The nadir of Callahan’s Titans tenure

The next game the Titans lost 26-0 to the rival Texans. It was the first shutout by the franchise now in Houston in 15 years — something that means a great deal to Strunk as the daughter of Bud Adams.

After the game, rookie quarterback Cam Ward had the quote of the week in the NFL.

“If we keeping it a buck right now, we ass,” Ward said. “We 0-4. At this point we got nothing to lose. We dropped a quarter of our f—ing games and we’ve yet to do anything. So we have to lock in. Especially myself. From the offensive line, from the defensive line, from the special teams to all three phases we have to play together. We have not played together this year yet …”

Ward had previously called the offense “mid” during training camp, as well. While the quotes made for great fodder for media and internet memes for everyone else, the biting criticism did not help his coach either.

Sources say that in the days after that press conference, Ward fielded a phone call from Warren Moon. The legendary Oilers quarterback has been an ambassador for the Titans, and he gave his blessing for Ward to wear his No. 1 jersey before the season. During the call Moon told Ward that’s not the way he should be representing the franchise, according to a source.

But the frustration was understood. Tennessee’s offense was the worst in the NFL through six weeks according to advanced analytics. They had an expected points added (EPA) of negative 73.4, 32nd in the league. In turn, the defense got worn out and couldn’t hold up for 60 minutes.

“We’re praying for a miracle but he’s drowning,” said one source during the losing streak.

The one victory this season is perhaps the luckiest of all NFL teams. Arizona Cardinals running back Emari Demercado fumbled a would-be touchdown at the goal line in the fourth quarter of Week 5’s game against the Titans. The Cardinals also fumbled what should have been a game-sealing interception that turned into a touchdown for Tennessee. It’s possible that without that victory, the Titans would have made the move on Callahan a week earlier than they did.

How did Tennessee get here?

The lack of talent on the team can’t be overlooked. Defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons is the only Titans player who could even be considered as a top-100 player in the league. Poor drafts by Robinson contributed greatly to the dearth of talent on today’s roster.

With his first-round picks between 2020 and 2022, Robinson selected Isaiah Wilson, Caleb Farley and Treylon Burks. Wilson played just one NFL game in his entire career and is one of the biggest draft busts in league history. Farley had back issues ahead of the draft, and that injury limited him to just 12 games with the Titans in his career. Burks registered one receiving touchdown in three years and was waived this summer.

Of Robinson’s 23 draft picks from 2020 through 2022, only Roger McCreary and Chig Okonkwo remain on today’s Titans roster.

Carthon’s two drafts are still too young to grade, but both first round selections went to fortifying the offensive line with Peter Skoronski and JC Latham. Will Levis, a second-round pick in 2023, never worked out, the 2024 trade for L’Jarius Sneed failed, and the Titans didn’t want to trade running back Derrick Henry while trying to keep some semblance of an offense. So he walked in 2024 free agency to the Ravens and turned in his first All Pro year in four years.

“They’re so quick to jump on things there,” said one league source. “I really question ownership. The turnover they’ve had here the last three years… This is a total rebuild.”

What’s next in Nashville? Anybody’s guess

Some around the league wondered if Callahan would survive after the first year when the Titans dispatched Carthon. Callahan never felt like he was on solid footing after that, sources say.

Tennessee’s unique setup makes it a question of who will actually lead the search for a new head coach. Chad Brinker is the president of football operations and hired Mike Borgonzi to be the team’s general manager as questions swirled around the league as to who would officially be the “primary football executive.” That title officially belongs to Borgonzi. In a press conference Monday night, Brinker said he and Borgonzi will lead the search for the next head coach.

Brinker was involved in the search that led to Callahan’s hire when he was assistant GM, but this will be his first head coach search in the lead. Borgonzi’s entire NFL career before Tennessee was spent with the Chiefs, who haven’t had a coaching search in more than a decade.

One of the top names in coaching searches this season will be Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady, who pulled himself out of the running for jobs last year to stay with Buffalo. It’s early, but sources doubt the Titans would go with a 30-something offensive coordinator with no head coach experience after firing Callahan, even if Brady has successfully called plays when Callahan did not as OC.

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Borgonzi and Brinker’s backgrounds could shed light on where they would look. In Kansas City, Borgonzi worked for years with both Matt Nagy and Steve Spagnuolo. Brinker worked with Mike McCarthy in Green Bay for years, and though they did not overlap with the franchise, current defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley should be a popular name come January.

All four of those coaches have head coaching experience, with Hafley’s coming from the collegiate ranks. Experience as a head coach figures to be important to Strunk.

It’s a crucial hire for her and the organization, which will debut its sparkling new stadium to begin the 2027 season. Permanent seat licenses and other premium ticket sales have gone well for the Titans, but they need to generate positive momentum next year to make sure New Nissan Stadium provides a homefield advantage.

A popular tourist destination that has experienced a population boom in recent years, Nashville is a transient city that has had an NFL franchise for less time than most NFL cities. With new residents and new money coming into the city, the Titans could see a stadium filled with opposing fans who snatched up tickets from an apathetic fanbase.

The hire must energize the fans, but he will also likely need to win over the media, too. Strunk is known to read and listen to press clippings while herself rarely speaking publicly. Her scarce interviews have been conducted by the team’s internal media in recent years, and she did not even offer a statement in the announcement of Callahan’s firing.

As one source familiar with Strunk put it when asked what the most important aspect of this coaching search will be: “Amy doesn’t want to get scolded in the media.”