The first head coaching change of the 2025 season has been made. Brian Callahan is out as the Titans’ coach, the team announced on Monday.
“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,” a statement from president of football operations Chad Brinker reads in part. “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.”
[RELATED: Titans Name Mike McCoy Interim Head Coach]
Hired in 2024 after a highly-regarded run as the Bengals’ offensive coordinator, Callahan was tasked with overseeing an offensive turnaround in Tennessee. That did not take place during his first season at the helm, but the decision to select Cam Ward gave the Titans a new signal-caller to build around. Six games in to the No. 1 pick’s career, a change is now taking place on the sidelines. NFL insider Jordan Schultz reports Tennessee’s preference was to avoid an in-season firing, but that stance shifted over the past few weeks.
Today’s announcement comes after talk about a Callahan dismissal increased over the early portion of the campaign. The 41-year-old handled offensive play-calling duties through his first season at the helm and the opening three games of the 2025 slate. Following a winless start, though, Callahan handed the reins to QBs coach Bo Hardegree. Moves such as those are often made in an attempt to increase a head coach’s job security.
Indeed, it was reported earlier this month Callahan and the coaching staff felt the front office was quickly losing patience. After Sunday’s game – a 20-10 loss against the Raiders – Callahan’s record fell to 1-5 on the year and 4-19 overall. Tennessee ranks 31st in the NFL in scoring and 26th in points allowed. After also struggling in both of those capacities last season, Callahan will not receive any further opportunities to improve.
In general, this dismissal adds further to the long list of organizational changes made in recent years by the Titans. Owner Amy Adams Strunk has overseen a slew of hirings and firings in short order dating back to the closing stages of Mike Vrabel‘s head coaching tenure. Not long before Vrabel was fired, general manager Jon Robinson had been dismissed. Robinson was replaced during the 2023 hiring cycle but Ran Carthon, but he too was let go this past offseason.
Tennessee hired Mike Borgonzi as Carthon’s replacement in January at a time when Brinker took on an elevated role in the organization. He and Borgonzi will look to provide stability with the Titans on track for their fourth consecutive losing season. It is unclear at this point who will take over on an interim basis, but senior offensive assistant Mike McCoy has head coaching experience. Defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson and special teams coordinator John Fassel are other internal candidates.
Regardless of what happens in the near term, the Titans’ search for a new full-time head coach will be critical. A top priority for Callahan’s replacement will of course be maximizing Ward’s potential and helping the offense take needed steps forward. The search on that front will begin early, and it will be interesting to see which candidates the team looks to speak with first.
Working closely alongside Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, Callahan spent five years in Cincinnati as the team’s offensive coordinator (albeit without calling plays). Another coordinator opportunity could await him in the future, but given the nature of his first head coaching spell a second chance in that capacity may not be coming any time soon. In the meantime, the Titans will prepare for their Week 7 game at home against Vrabel’s Patriots.
It’s been very hard to look at that Titans team and see what Callahan brought to the table. The two biggest feathers in his cap coming into the job were his work with the Bengals offense—which had multiple superstars and where he didn’t call plays—and bringing his lauded offensive line coach father with him, and the line has still been bad even with the elder Callahan and a ton of investment. It was hard to see this new front office keeping him around.
I hope they bring in someone good for Cam Ward, because he’s a very fun talent.
Sorry to burst your bubble. I don’t believe in Ward being anything better than average. At best.
We’ll see. I’m not guaranteeing stardom or anything, but he’s got some juice and I’m curious to see what a better scheme and supporting cast can yield.
Yeah with that OL, it’s really difficult to gauge how good he really is.
He has a chance to be extremely good, my fear is the Titans decide to go with a defensive coach which will on stagnate him more.
So far, whether it’s personnel, coaching, culture…or ge ready for it….just another college star who can’t play very well at the NFL level…..very mediocre performance so far by Ward…..
He’s six games into his career. He could very well turn out to be mediocre, but lots of good quarterbacks are mediocre in the very beginning of their pro careers, too, and this has not been a good situation.
Very true. As the saying goes “you’re only as good as the people that surround you.” Recent QBs like Darnold and Jones have shown they can be effective and above mediocre if given the right setting.
Also some guys just need time to adjust. It’s not like Josh Allen set the world on fire as a rookie. And Cam Ward is two years younger than Michael Penix. It’s OK to not be great in the first half of your rookie year.
Depends on the coaching. We’ve seen Daniel Jones and Mac Jones and Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield have career resurgences cause of coaching. Same goes for Ward. Right coaching he could be a top 10-15 QB in th league.
If Miami lets go of Mike McDaniels I think McDaniels would be a great OC for Ward to learn under
Far as HC, Mike McCarthy
McCarthy’s glory days are long over. Better to start with a rising OC who has called his own plays with experience nurturing young QBs. Kubiak from San Fran comes to mind as someone doing well, (with Mac Jones and Purdy) though it’s year one. Joe Brady with the Bills is another option
That Kubiak doesn’t call plays either.
Maybe he thinks his opinion is a guarantee lol. Oh no, bigjon says Ward will stink, it must be true!!
That’s how they hired Brian Callahan lol.
Titans need an experienced offensive coach and experienced offensive coordinator
McCarthy was hardly the issue in Dallas.
He became coach in 2020
Dak missed 11 games in 2020
Dak missed 5 games in 2022
Dak missed 9 games in 2024
When healthy
Dallas went 11-5 in 2021
Dallas went 8-4 in 2022 in Daks 12 starts
Dallas went 12-5 in 2023
He was 12-5 two years ago when his QB was healthy. A lot of places would love that glory. I know the Jets wished they hired him instead of Adam Gase eight years ago.
Gase is a pretty low bar. The Jets also haven’t had a quarterback, offensive line, or top receiver as good. And the best coach on that staff was Quinn.
I mean whose fault is that? Maybe Sam Darnold isn’t in Seattle if they did. Before he got to Dallas, Dak had never reached the heights he did under McCarthy. His offense was just as instrumental to their success as Quinn’s ability to get the most out of their defense.
Why would that burst his bubble? Lol.
Yeah, I was confused by that too. I said Ward is a very fun talent. That’s all.
They will never figure it out as long as clueless Amy’s the owner. She’s done nothing but make one head scratching decision after another.. And knows nothing about the game but continues to blunder onward. And she’s going to benefit from a brand new stadium – the largest (in $$) publicly funded stadium in North America – in a city in dire need of light rail. And this is the team the taxpayers will get. Wow.
This one isn’t head scratching. Neither was hiring Borgonzi. The team also had six straight winning seasons after she took over, and her time included the hiring of Mike Vrabel. But people only ever bring her up on here to call her an idiot. Funny how that works.
Well, she torpedo’d that quickly by firing the man responsible and has dysfunction, inconsistency, power plays, and conflicting public statements to show for it. Yes, it’s pretty fair to question Strunk’s fitness or consider her a meddling owner at the least.
I live there. I’ve seen it day to day for years. She’s also the reason Vrabel’s gone. She’s the one who didn’t want to pay AJ Brown and after OKing the trade, fired the GM Robinson, blaming him for that move. There’s nothing “funny” about it if your a Titan’s fan and a local taxpayer.
Agreed. Frankly, classic nepotism got him the job. Hope they take a look at Mike McCarthy.
McCarthy is stale.
Hope he enjoys working at Callahan Auto Parts. Here Big Tom is an excellent boss. Beware of that Zalinsky guy.
Oh no, you haven’t heard the news about Big Tom? You might want to sit down.
I blame Beverly Callahan if anything happened to Big Tom or Little Tom.
Wait til you hear about her “son.”
Sandusky isn’t quite Nashville. Might be a hard sell
They should have fired Callahan last offseason and allowed Ward to develop with a proper coach. Very poor decision making from the Titans the past few years
But that would’ve required an owner and GM who could actually know one if they found one.
As a Titans fan this is long overdue, there has never been such a bad HC in Nashville.
Literally Ken Wisenhunt was better, let that sink in.
Glenn should be next
Tennessee let Derrick Henry leave and sacked Mike Vrabel, much to the Titans’ regret. Vrabel has revived the Patriots while Henry is still a productive back in Baltimore.
Yet the National Sportsball Media believe the Jets are the bigger car crash.
Really splitting hairs on that one. You could argue that the Jets fired Todd Bowles and are 32-74 since. Bowles on the Bucs also has 32 wins, but only 25 losses. Let that sink in for a second. Bowles could lose his next 48 games and still have a better record than the Jets since the beginning of 2019.
If you want a Henry analog, Rodgers is 4-1 for the Steelers and has been productive.
I think your points have more to do with those teams’ ownership than the people under them.
The trending instability points to misaligned players, coaches, and personnel a la Cleveland. Plus the waste of more talented players’ careers.
Bud we’re the only winless team left. This article isnt about the Jets btw
Maybe they could hire Mike Vrabel.
Wait a minute ….
Eagles should hire him to replace their crappy OC
Is his Dad still there?
Yes. Rumor is he may just resign though
Owners need to leave the business of running a team to the professionals. This owner hires and fires on a whim…she needs to sell or step aside….
Could not agree more. Meddling owners = bad teams.
She just brought in a new front office this offseason. I’m guessing they don’t want Callahan around.
Jets owner says “hold my beer”.
Will probably go to McCoy … Stunk will get rid of everybody again. This offensive line just never got better.
McCoy will probably go all out with the running game, which Callahan failed to do. This line cant pass block.
This has been the most perplexing thing about him since he had his father there who is good at run game coordination. Their team doesn’t pass block well, but they can run the ball, and it would benefit Ward and their defense, which has some good parts, better than what they’ve shown frankly. Patriots are going to be in for a tougher game with McCoy as interim.
time to give kingsbury another shot .. bring in glenn as DC after he’s fired
And they can bring in Antonio Pierce and Jerod Mayo to be assistants.
The success of Kyle Shanahan has and will continue to get so many nepo kids jobs they don’t deserve and can’t handle.
James Franklin is available. Hah
Too soon for Franklin jokes! LOL
the only question I have is what took so long
In Nashville everybody has to face the music sooner or later 🙂
We never found out if he was a good offensive coordinator because Zac ” I’m not Andy” Taylor won’t let anyone do anything he thinks he can do better. The kids of death was when he blamed his QB’s instead of taking the blame like a good coach should. To young or to ignorant I guess. You would think his dad would have pulled him aside and smartened him up. Good thing is maybe the Bengals can hire his dad to coach the offensive line.
His dad was the guy of we’re the dumbest team in America fame, and that was a veteran, veteran team. So probably not getting that advice from him.
Yeah, you’re right. Probably don’t want advice from a guy whose been around football all his life, is considered the best offensive line coach in football today, and was just happens to be the head coaches dad. I’d much rather take my chances with coach surfing idiots on the Internet.
It’s for the best. Dude was out of his depth
I agree, but it’s really hard for me to think that Tennessee is any better now after having done that. Maybe this is was Brinker’s decision more than Strunk’s, but it’s hard not to see it as a reactionary decision so soon into the year given her history. At this point, whomever you hire is going to have to spend years rebuilding the cultures. Callahan got hired into a volatile situation, and will leave it a volatile situation.
We say this this a lot, but it’s extremely true in this case: it all comes from above. By alternating firing the coach and GM every year this team cannot get anywhere, no matter who the new hire is.
She’s hired two coaches, lol. When did she become David Tepper?
When she fired two coaches and two GMs in the last three years. Tepper hasn’t even done that-he gave them more time than Strunk did, and that was inadequate on his end, as well.
She didn’t fire them though. She rearranged the org chart, and their new bosses fired them. Brian Callahan was way out of his depth from day one. You suggest sticking with him just to stick with him? You think Robert Kraft erred in firing Mayo then? It’s the exact same thing. At least they gave him a quarter of this year to see if he got better, and he didn’t. Carthon also got fired by his new boss, the president who she put in charge of him and football ops. So on one hand, you want there to be this structure, but on the other hand you’re blaming her for what they saw as the problem. Carthon had two terrible drafts. About the only one I saw as a problem was firing Robinson, but guess who was responsible for that one. Yeah, good old Mike Vrabel. You might want to look around about that one.
You know that I’m not saying that Kraft should have retained Mayo (who also was not fired six games into the season). It’s not even relevant. The only thing in common is that those are two coaches that were bad and got fired before making it two years.
I know that Strunk rearranged the organization. That happens commonly when someone gets fired or is about to be. Do you really think that she did that with zero opinion about whether someone should be fired? She’s the owner, she’s the final say. Are you saying that you think that Strunk was a bystander in all of this turmoil? Have the Titans simply been so unlucky that they keep hiring coaches and executives that can’t make it two years? Strunk is the common denominator, and it’s not like she’s been silent about it, either. She’s made statements about performance-ironically she did that after firing her most successful executive in Jon Robinson.
We can talk about how bad a lot of the Titans’ decision makers have been. This is not a defense of Callahan. This is holding Strunk accountable for creating an environment where nobody can be consistent because of constant turnover. She also doesn’t help appearance by usually firing one person at a time-especially when another person moves up or gets more say afterward. When it happens multiple times, yeah, you notice.
No, I’m saying she let the football people make the call. You’ve made up this meddling owner in your head when she’s not. She hired a football president who rightly saw how terrible Carthon’s first two drafts went, and he was fired. The new GM came in and saw what we all saw last year, that Callahan had no business being an HC, but he at least gave him this year to try to fix it, and he was worse than last year. Mayo is very relevant because it’s the same thing that happened there, but for some reason you want to act obtuse like it’s not. In fact, the owner made the call directly there, but you have no problem with it for some reason despite way less support from the organization given to Mayo in his one year than the Titans gave Callahan.
Btw, you also keep bringing up her firing Robinson when anyone who knows a little bit about the Titan dynamic knows that Vrabel got him pushed out, wanted his guy who is currently who he brought in with him to the Patriots to be the GM, and when he didn’t get it, he didn’t play nice with Carthon,and that’s why he got fired too. Context is needed. None of this stuff happened in a vacuum.
Nobody said any of this happened in a vacuum. That’s actually why it’s bad. The mental gymnastics required to hold everybody accountable except the main decision maker here is complex and inconsistent. I don’t what you’re wanting out of bringing in Kraft, but no, I have no issue with Mayo’s firing. So do with that what you will, but the stretch required to make that work as a logical parallel really isn’t something I see. I can’t tell you out of it if you see it that way.
You can believe that I’ve made up this fantasy if you choose to. If that supposition is your belief, I can’t talk you out of making the assumption. I see these facts, and make my decision based off them: Strunk has fired (or by your interpretation, allowed to be fired) four executives in three calendar years, each in different seasons. Strunk wrested control of the franchise from her siblings in a high profile power struggle. Strunk has put out press releases that are at once conflicting and confusing. That’s where I get my interpretation from. Given that Tennessee is about to build an enormously expensive stadium for her team, the spotlight is rather bright.
If you think I’m making this up, just google it. Nearly every sports-related site has an article either discussing Tennessee’s dysfunction or blaming Strunk directly for it. Examples include, but certainly are not limited to, Sports Business Journal, Sports Illustrated, the New York Post, and The Tennessean. I’d link them, but links are pretty awkward on this site. I did not write those articles, so the notion must be fairly widespread.
I haven’t seen any case as to why she’s a GOOD owner, other than you just saying that she is. By the way, Brinker said that he and Borgonzi made the decision in the morning AFTER meeting with Strunk. So, yeah, it seems that she made that decision for them. If she didn’t she was involved. Those are Brinker’s own words, not mine. Strunk said that she made the decision to fire Vrabel. She said, “Earlier today, I spoke with Mike Vrabel and told him about my decision to make a change at head coach…” Those are her words. When it came to firing Jon Robinson, she said, “Honestly, I had made the decision. It was time to move forward.” As for Ran Carthon, she said “I am deeply disappointed in our poor win-loss record during this period, of course, but my decision also speaks to my concern about our long-term future.”
So, yeah, I’m confused as to how Strunk can be said to have not fired anybody. She took direct responsibility for three of the four, and her new executive said that the other was done after a meeting with Strunk. She is the owner. And is the decision-maker. She is the one who approved all of these people that she then blamed for the Titans’ losses. Strunk is either impatient, thrives on conflict, a poor judge of talent, or all three. The most generous interpretation, which could be true, is that she legitimately thought that these were good hires, and either made them or allowed them to be made. Seeing how things have gone the last four years, she should be working to create a more stable environment, instead of a volatile one. That doesn’t mean Callahan was a good coach, but it’s also true that Strunk created this culture long before he ever got a chance to ruin a high end pick. That’s pretty much what I’ve got, I enjoyed our talk.
They need a massive culture change. I don’t even know where to begin for the next head coach. Joe Brady? Brian Flores? Todd Monken?
It was apparent about a month in last year despite the personnel issues. The Titans do have some talent despite the narrative.
Unqualified to be an HC. You have to wonder what these front office people are talking about in these interviews if they can’t see it before they hire these people.
It never makes sense to bring in a first time head coach to a rebuilding team, as you can’t be guiding the team when you are still learning your own way.
Sean McVay, Kevin McConnell and Kyle Shanahan might have something to say about that.