Music City Miracles
The Tennessee Titans fired Brian Callahan in October. We have been speculating on potential names for the next head coach ad nauseam since then. Yesterday, we received clarification from Amy Adams Strunk that General Manager Mike Borgonzi will lead the coaching search. Borgonzi can officially begin the process on Monday morning by lining up interviews that can start as early as Tuesday.
Here is everything you need to know about the Titans’ head coaching search:
The Titans can begin virtual interviews on Tuesday, January 6th, for any coaches who don’t currently have a job, coaches who are with a team that did not make the playoffs, or coaches on a team that played today, Saturday, January 3rd, whose team has a first-round bye.
On Wednesday, January 7th, they can interview coaches from teams that have a first-round bye whose team played on Sunday, January 4th.
On Tuesday, January 13th, the Titans can interview candidates on teams that played and lost in the wild-card round on Saturday, January 10th, or Sunday, January 11th.
Finally, on Wednesday, January 14th, they can begin interviews with coaches whose team played and lost in the Monday, January 12th, wild-card round.
Zac Lyons put together a fantastic spreadsheet laying out the timelines for potential coaching candidates:
While we have no way of knowing the criteria Borgonzi actually has for the next head coach, we do know that the development of Cam Ward has to be near the top of the list. That doesn’t mean they will absolutely hire an offensive-minded coach, but it does mean that if they hire a defensive-minded coach, that person needs to have a strong list of potential offensive coordinators.
After the way things went with Callahan, it would also make sense for them to be looking for someone with previous experience as a head coach. Now, that comes with pluses and minuses. The minus is that any coach who has been a head coach before was fired from that job for not performing well. The plus is that they know what the job entails, and have hopefully learned from what didn’t work previously.
As I said above, names have been floating around since Callahan was fired in October. Here are the names of guys who have been rumored to be on the Titans’ list by various reports (in no particular order):
