Titans Chaos Aftermath: Q&A on Brian Callahan’s firing, Amy Adams Strunk and Chad Brinker’s decision

Titans Chaos Aftermath: Q&A on Brian Callahan’s firing, Amy Adams Strunk and Chad Brinker’s decision

[Music] Welcome in to the A Toz Sports Prime Time Show. As I adjust my camera appropriately, I’m East Freeze, Titans beat writer and reporter, coming live to you from my home in Nashville. It’s a Tuesday night and the Titans are a mess. The pieces are scattered around on the floor. Maybe somebody will come along and pick them up. But in the meantime, we’re going to talk about the aftermath of the Titans firing Brian Callahan Monday morning, taking seven hours to get their act together to appoint Mike McCoy as the interim head coach. He spoke today. To be honest with you, number one, I wasn’t there because I had the bright idea weeks, months ago to make this innocuous looking Tuesday on my calendar my let’s knock out a bunch of appointments today. So, I had a haircut today. I had a dental cleaning today. I did a bunch of stuff that I scheduled a long time ago that by the time I realized, crap, the interim head coach was going to talk for the first time today. It was going to cost me real American US dollars to uh cancel all of those things. And I said, “You know what? Buck will be there. I’ll talk to him next time. It’ll be all right.” And it doesn’t seem like I missed a whole lot. He gave a a comment at the top that I thought was appropriate and fitting for having this transitional period and taking over. I think that he did a fine job. He seems like a from all accounts talking to folks behind the scenes seems like he is a a fine man, a good man, somebody that knows what he’s doing, a high floor, low disruption candidate for this job. for the next 11 games. And so I have no problem with the decision. I have no problem with what he said at this press conference. We’re not going to spend a whole lot of time on that today unless unless you all have questions about it because I did listen to it. And if you have specific questions about it, be happy to answer them. Today’s episode, we’re going to ask a question here in a minute. Uh but we’re really going to do a Q&A for the entire time and I tweeted out earlier this afternoon. Today, big Q&A debrief, Titans Insider Q&A. I’ve had about 30 hours now to talk to many, many, many of the players in all of this. Folks that work for the Titans, folks that no longer work for the Titans. We uh we have a lot to de debrief and I’m happy to answer as many questions as I possibly can. So, today is the day to jump into the comments. As Brandon says, great first question. Did I have any cavities? I didn’t, which is fantastic news. Oversharing time. I have pretty bad teeth like structurally. They’re not like bad like like un like like not straight and stuff like no they’re straight. I had braces and everything but my uh I guess my parents just gave me a a bad a bad hand. I was dealt genetically and so I tended to have cavities and I think eventually one day I’ll have to get like caps and stuff because my teeth just aren’t very strong. And uh every time I go I’m expecting to get that bad news. But today it’s all coming up east baby. Uh maybe six more months before I have to do that again. Um we’ll talk about the Titans coaching change. We’ll talk about the power players behind the scenes in making that decision. Amy Adam Strung, Chad Brinker, Mike Borghazi. U spoken to a lot of these folks. I’ve spoken to folks in the building and I want to answer your questions to the best of my ability based on what I know. So today is the day to send in your questions. I have some questions from Twitter that we will roll to to talk about. Uh I want to address any of your questions in the comments. So tonight, if you’re watching on Facebook, if you’re watching on YouTube, jump into that comment section. I appreciate you being here. hit that like button for me. That goes a long way. So, like the show, hit that thumbs up button, and then jump into the comments so that you can uh chime in on what we’re talking about this evening and we’ll kind of talk about where the team goes from here. But first, let me tell you all about our wonderful and amazing sponsors here on the Prime Time Show. Starting out with Two Rivers Ford, the South’s most trusted Ford dealership in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, serving all of Nashville in the middle Tennessee area. If you’re searching for a trusted Ford dealership in town, then Two Rivers has you covered. As the leading Ford dealership in Mount Juliet, they pride themselves on offering an exceptional selection of new and used Ford vehicles with a particular focus on the ever popular F-150 and F-250 Superduty trucks. Their commitment to customer satisfaction and quality service sets them apart from other car dealerships in the area. Check them out. The South’s most trusted Ford dealership, Two Rivers Ford. 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Every item is handpicked for quality, design, and a touch of Nashville character. personal attention from their knowledgeable staff that is ready to help you discover the perfect piece for you. The experience is more than shopping. It’s a store that feels like it was made for you. So, make the trip. Visit Simon Says Men’s Closers in Nashville today. And with that, we are off. Ross, uh, let’s start with this. We have a question, our two rivers take question that we can kind of break the ice with. And that question is, what does firing Brian Callahan actually do for the Titans? What have we accomplished here? Because, as I said on the morning show today, we did a one word. What’s the one word you have for Brian Callahan being fired? And my one word was ceremonial. It was ceremonial because one, the press conference last night with Brinker and Borghazi felt ceremonial in the sense that uh they were being trotted out to answer for a decision that they really didn’t make. It feels ceremonial in the sense that this is a firing that comes not that anyone’s surprised the firing came eventually, right? This question was when for the past couple of weeks, not if. We all understood that if Brian Callahan would be fired, the answer was yes. The uh the question was when and a lot of us me I know Paul Kaharski helped this way I the majority of folks on the beat were caught off guard by this because we honestly thought that this team they’re practicing patience over panic mantra the leadership of Boronzi and Brinker they were going to be whether you see it uh glass half empty or glass half full whether whether you see it as they want to be patient or whether you see it as they’re happy to just ride out this tank with Brian Callahan either way I think that we all thought they would go a lot longer into the season before they pull the plug. Because what good does it really do to fire your coach in week six, unless they’ve lost the locker room, unless they’ve done something specifically during the week behind the scenes or in a game that is a fireable offense, right? If those things haven’t happened, which we don’t really have any evidence to the effect that they have, even the first time I’ve come close to hearing anything about the locker room, first of all, hearing it with my own ears, seeing it with my own eyes, talking to the players as I do almost every day of the week, but then I, you know, reading articles from others that have insight that maybe I don’t have, I think it was Albert Reer’s article today, and I apologize if I’m got the wrong insider on that, but somebody wrote an article today talking about the the locker room and their opinion of Brian Callahan and it it it was the first time anyone’s come close to alluding to a lost locker room. But even in this pretty confident writing, pretty seem seemed to be pretty well sourced. They were talking about how Callahan maybe had started at the end here to slip in terms of the locker room’s trust in him to be the guy going forward, but even so, he had not lost the respect of anyone in the locker room, and nobody in the locker room disliked him. Brian Callahan is one of the most likable guys that you’ll ever meet. And so I think that went a long way for him not to I frankly maybe the most astonishing thing about Brian Callahan’s short 23 game tenure to me is that no matter how bleak it got and holy crap it got bleak. It got bleak. He he never lost the locker room. And I I don’t I don’t know how to be honest with you because each week I was expecting for there to be cracks in the armor to start to show through and there just weren’t. And that’s I think it’s a credit to to his leadership style at the very least. You know, there are a million a million things that you can uh take issue with from the Brian Callahan tenure. I’m not sitting here telling you that that this was a mistake by any means to eventually move on. It it wasn’t. But I am telling you it’s kind of wild that he never lost the locker room. And so my point here is that doesn’t happen. Why do this now? And throw that back up there for me. Ross Connor Kill says it entirely has to do with your old coach coming to town and absolutely wrecking your new coach you replaced him with avoiding that entire embarrassment. I firmly believe this Connor I wrote about this and I I’m with you man. I’m with you. I don’t think it, you know, entirely might be a stretch. I think a big chunk of this was that it’s been six weeks and six weeks is a short time in the NFL, but for an owner that is feeling every single body blow of this season narratively and also in person in her box in Vegas and in Arizona dealing with the the the embarrassment, the trauma of this. It is so much easier before a season to say you’re going to commit to patience and and understand that you might not win many games. And it’s an entirely other thing in a season to swallow it, to take it. It’s a tough one to swallow. And I think a big part of this was she just decided I can’t I can’t do this anymore. I must do something. What does that something do for me right now? What does it accomplish? I would argue not much. I’ve I’ve heard a lot in the last 30 hours of why, oh, the Titans will never actually be good until they somehow get rid of Amy Adams. Oh, the Titans will never be good until they get the right head coach in there. I don’t know. I kind of think the Titans aren’t going to be good until their roster is better at football. You know, like I’m not again not coping for Brian Callahan. I was talking to some people in the the media room last night about this though and we were talking about Mike Vrabel because it’s a topic on everyone’s minds and somebody asked, I don’t know if it’s Terry or Paul. Somebody asked Vrabel has the team last year instead of Callahan the whole season. How many how many more wins does he get than the three the Titans got? And we all kind of agreed five maybe maybe a couple of those coin flip games go his way. Doesn’t that feel appropriate this year in these first six games? How many does he win? Two, you know, maybe maybe a third. Does he get the luck that they got in Arizona? I don’t know. Probably not. Is anybody getting that luck ever again? Probably not. So, I just, you know, again, I Call Calahan, it need it it needed to be changed eventually. I’m not saying it didn’t. I just think that in hindsight, uh I’m not I’m not sure how many coaches in the history of the league would have been fit to lead this team over the last 23 games, and Brian Callahan certainly wasn’t one of them, I guess, is basically where I’m coming down on this. I just don’t know. I’m kind of pessimistic as to where we go from here because the upside of this firing as I was talking to somebody late last night about this in the building. What’s let’s let’s do an upside downside risk of analysis on this. What’s the upside? Well, the upside is kind of this magical postfired coach bump that you see teams get. Even sometimes it’s because the the team hated the guy that you fired and then he’s gone and it’s like ding-dong the witch is dead and everyone understood understands why that happens, right? But even when they liked the guy, there still tends to be this at least little maybe one week postfired coach bump because you rally around the new guy because you feel bad for him put in a tough spot. But more importantly, all the players in that locker room see the head of the snake cut off. And even if you liked the head of the snake, you go, “Well crap, if he’s gone, everybody’s on notice, right?” It’s a it’s a sobering wakeup call. And so maybe you see that this week, and I’m not going to sit here and say like I think I think if the Titans come out against the Patriots and it’s a lot better effort, there’s going to be a lot of yapping about, oh my goodness, it was a Brian Callahan problem. And may like I’m I’m happy to be wrong. Frankly, anything that means this team gets better, I’m happy to be wrong about. Um, but I think we we’ll need to see more than one week of this to definitively say, “Oh my goodness, it was it’s some whatever it was. It was clearly a Brian Cowan problem because this team is magically better now.” I’m just not buying that. I like I I can I I can Google the roster right now and see who’s on the team and and I know how they’ve played for six weeks. Like it’s not good. An H Hearnden says, “This week is a good week to get that bump for me.” Yeah. I mean, cynically, if you were going to burn that one week bump any week this year, week seven is the week to do it, man. So, best of luck to you. Best of luck to Mike McCoy. I I hope it goes your way. I You know, another thing I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I heard Jared Stillman bring this up and he’s he’s spot on about this. How many times when Vable was here did we all talk talk about classic Varable games where winning games that he had no business winning and losing games he had no business losing? This will be a game that Patriots head coach Mike Greyel has no business losing. So maybe you get a classic varable spot to the negative end of the spectrum. That’s that’s kind of the hope for the Titans. They have two two reasons for optimism for the Titans in this game. Number one, magical post coach firing bump. Number two, Vrabel likes to play down to teams sometimes. That’s what you got going for you. All the other things in the pro and con list are in the Patriots FA favor, I’m afraid to say. So best of luck. Um, with that, let’s get to some questions because I know we have a bunch saved, Ross, and we’re already 15 minutes into this thing and I’ve got some on Twitter. Let me get to these. Actually, let’s kind of mix them in. Let me start with one from Twitter because I’d imagine we probably have somebody in the comments here who’s brought it up as well. Oh, you know what? Right at the top, my favorite commenter, Bizar PK. Who is wrong? You or Jim Wyatt? So, Jim, my friend Jim, he did a mailbag today and he put in his gym, uh, Bizar, did you talk to Wyatt or at least read his mailbag? I read his mail back. I’ve not talked to him today because I wasn’t at the facility. I would have if I was at the facility, but I wasn’t. Um I’m I’m assuming we’re just talking about this portion that I’ll read. I actually don’t know what the question was because I just have the screenshot of Jim’s answer. But I I’m assuming the question has to do with the decision yesterday, the timing of the decision to name Mike McCoy the interim and how long it took. And Jim said, “Thanks for taking the time, Maximus.” And you can be sure they’ll do their due diligence in finding the next head coach. For now, it’s Mike McCoy as the interim. He was introduced at the press conference at 1 pm today. I saw some folks speculate yesterday that the team fired Callahan without having a plan for who the interim coach would be. I can tell you this is 100% false. Now that is not even really like he’s not subweeting us. He’s he’s just he’s being courteous. Uh that is in reference I believe to just me and Paul Kaharski who both tweeted yesterday. A matter of fact, let me go scroll and find it so that I can actually quote myself correctly. Paul said, hold for effect. Paul said yesterday at 100 p.m.ish, one insider thanks Brian Callahan was fired without a plan for who’s the interim. And I tweeted a quote tweet of that at uh 1:30 p.m. I I said I have now heard this from a separate source as well. Everything is in flux at Titans HQ. Messi. Now, um I didn’t have to read Jim’s article to know that this is the team’s rebuttal to what we said because I heard it from two different people in the building yesterday. One almost immediately after I said it on Twitter and one last night when I when I spoke at length to someone. Uh I heard the same thing that the absolutely there was a plan. We talking of course there’s a plan. There was a plan. Okay. The team the team swears there was a plan. The team writer swears there was a plan. I’m not going to sit here and I I can’t prove that they’re wrong. Okay, fine. There was a plan. That does not change the fact that from a reporting capacity, Paul heard one person in the building at the time who thought that there was not a plan. And then I 30 minutes later heard from a different person in the building that was a part of all of this that felt like there was a lot of chaos and that there was a mess and that there was no plan. So, I’m not going to sit here and say there was no plan. I am going to say, well, it took them seven and a half hours to get their act together. I am going to say that I’ve seen other teams fire coaches and appoint interims and usually like the team handles the press releases and things are things that there’s a transition and they announce what the plan is when they announce the guy’s been fired or very shortly thereafter, not seven hours later. Um, I know I know that what happened to the Titans yesterday is that this all got drawn out over like a seven or eight hour span and the Nationals the National Reporters, not the Nationals baseball team in case you were confused there. The national reporters got to all of the details of this before the team or anyone local did because the Titans are a leaky leaky ship apparently with the Nationals. Somebody’s in bed with Albert Brerier and Diana Rousini in the in this in this front office which no shade to the National guys for doing their job. shade of the Titans for being unable to handle their own narrative yesterday. Like it was just it was embarrassing by proxy. It was and then they have the folks that are talking to the locals, me and Paul. What we’re hearing is that it’s chaos and that there’s not a plan. So if we’re hearing that and then the team later in the day says, “No, no, no. Stop. It’s 100. We’re going to write in the the team and I’m not disparaging Jim for doing his job. Jim’s doing his job. He heard what I heard. He’s taking his employer’s word as he should. are. Let’s use our brains. Let’s use our brains. Um, okay. Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I lost the thing that I need. So, Ross, what’s the next question from the chat? Uh, Brent Favre, hello Brent. Any chance we could take James Franklin, talk James Franklin into coming back to Nashville? Yeah, man. Per, I mean, very fortuitous timing that James Franklin is on the market. Uh he might be cheap because right now he’s you know slated to get $48 million direct deposited for free. So he’s got he’s got schmoney that he you know he’s just love of the game coaching at this point, right? Um no. The answer is absolutely not. No. Next question. Curtis, will we see tempo this Sunday? I don’t know. It’s a good question. One of the probably the most interesting thing that Mike McCoy said in his press conference today, a lot of folks ran with this was that um he said, and I’m paraphrasing because I don’t have it right in front of me. He said that uh among the things he’s going to change, this is in response to a question about like what are you going to change for Cam in particular? Well, among those things is his philosophy is play players over plays, right? Let’s let’s focus on setting the players up for success individually instead of trying to fit that square peg into the round hole of my playbook. And I don’t I mean Mike and and Brian are are friend like Mike’s not taking a swipe at Brian there. That would be an out crazy thing to do to very rude. Um but I think that that is something that a lot of people latched on to and were like fantastic. Maybe that means we see some of the things we’ve all been clamoring for this weekend. We see Kim Ward put in positions to succeed a little bit more. Maybe, maybe. But in color me cynical at this point. Fair, man. Fair. Uh, we heard Brian Kellan say this a bunch. In fact, I think I’ve heard every ball coach I’ve ever actually spent a long time like talking to, listening to. I think they’ve all said this at some point. It’s like, well, it’s, you know, it’s it’s about setting up the players and not, you know, not I’m not trying to make anybody tailored to my playbook. I’m trying to tailor my playbook to the players. Okay, man. Like, yes. every every coach, news flash, no coaches are out there saying actually my playbook is what wins the games, not these players, and these guys need to get on on my page because I’m I’m the Kyle Shanahan maybe to an extent, but even he part of what makes him brilliant is that he knows how to press the right buttons for his guys. So, what I’m saying is not that that he’s full of crap on this. What I am saying is that it’s nice that he said it. I’m glad that he said it. I’ll be super jazzed about it when I see what that means on Sunday. You know what I mean? And uh that’s not just this Sunday. I’m not going to like, you know, no judge, judge, jury, and execution are based on one game or anything, but I do want to start to see those things if there if there are actual big changes to be made. And I know that there are some things that the front office and this coaching staff now that Brian are gone, like I’m aware of some of the things that some of the ideas that are floating out there in terms of, well, maybe we change this, maybe we change that. I’ve heard them and I’m curious to see one, if they happen, and then two, if they actually change anything. So, we’ll see. Let me go to the Twitter because I did send out a tweet and ask her some questions earlier. So, um um um Cass asks, this is a good one. Do you think there’s a reality in which Mike McCoy does well enough to earn the job? Ultimately, no. I don’t think so. I’ve done some digging on that already. It’s still very early. Obviously, 11 games is a lifetime in the NFL. Well, it’s it’s both long and short, I guess, depending on the the way that you’re talking about it. But 11 games is a lot of games. For an inter interim head coach, brother, that’s a lot. That’s a big old healthy serving of games for you as an interim head coach to show off what you got. And unfortunately for Mike McCoy, the tools that he’s been given, the the ingredients for him to cook up these this 11 game meal um are some of them are rotten, some of them are tasteless. Um it’s not a great batch of ingredients for this chef. And so I I don’t know quite what the ceiling is. Could he, you know, win nine of these 11 games and it just changes the picture? Yeah, man. Like winning trumps all in the NFL. I get it. Is that going to happen? No. But more importantly, is there something besides winning all the games that he could do to win the job? I just I really don’t think so. I We saw how a Chad Brinker led and I do believe the coaching search will be Chad Brinker led again. We saw what that looked like for a GM. It was there was no shortage of due diligence. Whether you agree with the hiring in the end or not, they went through uh 10 or 11 different interviews in the span of three days, three-hour zooms a piece, grinding at the facility. I mean, this was back when I I had my I was doing my interview with Brian Callahan, the big hour and a half interview I did. I had that lined up and then these days were so long and arduous that it pushed that schedule back over a week because they were so stuck to this interview process and then they did call backs for like six guys and they flew them all in. Like they they did their due diligence. It’s going to look a lot like that when they get around to hiring a coach. And so will they end up landing on just the guy that was here? I don’t think so. Anything’s possible, but I really, really, really doubt it. Best of luck to Mike McCoy though to change my mind and more importantly to change his employer’s minds. Um, let me just rattle off these. Let me just do one more of these Twitter questions. Uh, another coaching question from Alex. Realistic chances the Ravens actually fire Harbaugh. If they do, is there a better dream than John Harbaugh as head coach and bringing over Todd Monkin, who I wanted us to interview last year, reunion with Wil with Dard Wilson. I mean, that’s an that’s a fever dream of an idea. I talked to uh a guy here at a toz that’s more plugged into the the Ravens situation and he agreed with what I felt like which was it’d be crazy town if they fired John Harbaugh. That’s probably not coming. The only indication that maybe this is a possibility is that there are some rumors and by rumors I mean coming from uh uh uh not Dan Rousini um Justina Anderson who I can’t stand. Um, and I also don’t think she’s the most reputable person in the world, personally. That’s my opinion. She’s pushing this idea that maybe Lamar wants some change around there from the coaching staff. Okay. Well, if you know, if Lamar pushes it, then maybe anything’s on the table. But I really don’t think it’s possible. Let’s get to some more of your questions in the comments here. What’s the next question, Ross from the commenters? Zachary Smith, can Nashville force Amy to sell the Titans? Just wondering. Legit question. Fair. Legit question. Legit answer. No, you are stuck with your owner forever and always until they decide unless you can get them on criminal charges and the government could force them to do it. But uh Amy’s a lot of things. A criminal or serious criminal. She is not at least. I can’t I’m not going to say billionaires man. Who knows? Who knows? I’m not going to, you know, I’ve seen enough TV shows to know. But she she’s not committing any crimes that are going to be in getting her in any hot water anytime soon. Next question. Michael Wagner, are we still bashing Amy or has the media moved on? I was never bashing Amy, even on the morning show where we really went after Amy this morning. I was saying a lot of folks in our in our market love bashing Amy. I do not. I really would like to get to know Amy. I really would I it’s it’s frustrating to me that that I I I have to talk about this lady so much, but I don’t never said a word to her. That’s not true. I’ve said a word to her. It we were talking but it had nothing it was about Home Depot. It was in passing. It was friendly. it had nothing to do with the football. Um, I’ve not actually ever spoken to her about what she does or really spoken to her in in a substantive way in in any capacity. So, I just it’s frustrating. I wish I wish I could understand her more. I do. Um, and I wish that she would pick Elaine between I think she does a little bit of wanting her cake and eating it too with claiming to be in the background and functionally acting like she’s in the background, but then pulling levers and making decisions and trotting out people to answer for things they didn’t do. That part frustrates me. Next question. Zach P, why on earth is Nick Holtz still here? Fantastic question. I think Nick Holtz would ask that question to you. He’d be like, why why am I still here? um because they need him. He’s they this this team needs bodies, man. The coaching staff, they need bodies. And as I’ve been telling you all, he is good at the behind-the-scenes work that he does in terms of like the like he he gets a lot of work done that needs to be done during the week. Whether you think it’s effective on Sundays or not, fair question, man. But he does stuff that somebody has to do around there and they they want him to keep doing it. So, the the beatings will continue for our good friend Nikki until morale improves. Next question. Brandon Tyler, now you can tell us. Did you know he was about to get fired? I I did not. I did not. I always wondered um whether I would have that privilege or not. I mean, based on what I’ve heard, the way that it happened, he hardly knew until it happened. And then his his coaches were caught off guard by it and then the rest of us were caught off guard by it by the nationals. So I I did I mean I I knew that it generally could be coming but I did not get any personal correspondence to that effect. I wish I had but I did not. Next question. Brock Harris. Joe Brady head coach. Uh Brian Hartline OC. I think Joe Brady will be quite high on the list of candidates this year for any team looking for a head coach. He is a he’ll be a first time a would be firsttime candidate. So that’s going to scare off some teams. I think that the Titans certainly every every team always has kind of a theme for what they’re looking for and a lot of times it’s swinging the opposite direction of the last guy. Frael was an You go to the opposite of an and Brian Callahan. I don’t think the Titans are going to swing back to an I sure hope that they don’t. But I do think they’re going to swing away from inexperience and towards experience. I’m I’ve done some research on this coming later. And Jack Longley, I want an experienced coach. Yeah, man. I get it. Um, you know, historically speaking, who the most successful head coaches are in terms of category? Like what category? Like I said, offensive guys or defensive guys. wonder can brainiacs or motivators of men like what’s the category of coach that is the best? It’s two things and I’m going to write about this eventually. Uh it’s second time head coaches and it is coordinators that have called plays for five or more years. Aka guys that have been there, done that, failed before and gotten back up. That that is historically the guys that are the best at coaching and I think the Titans are keenly aware of that and I think that they’ll make their decision accordingly. Next question. Grover Biscuits, great question. How much or great name? We’ll see if the question is great. Eastston, how much faith do you have in McCoy’s comments? I’m playing to the player strengths of Cam. I I’m my faith is like at a five out of 10. I’m super on the fence. Like I I I want to believe him. And I I want for there to be I also don’t know. I don’t I don’t think there’s this magical answer of well, if they just did this, if they just did this this way, then they I I don’t think it’s that simple. And I think fans that think that it that it is are talking about something that’s a little above their pay grade, to be honest with you. Um, but I hope that there are answers and that they identify them and that they make those changes. I just have heard coaches say this and it nothing nothing changed. Nothing happened. So, I will believe it when I start to see it on the field on Sundays. I think that’s fair. I think Mike McClo would say that’s fair. Next question. Titans talk 615. Do you have any advice for someone entering the sports journalism media field? I get this question a lot. I I don’t mean to be dismissive at all. Um, the there’s no like this is a really hard question to answer succinctly. So, in the f DM me or like in the future I can I can talk through this maybe on a different setting. Um, put yourself out there. Know what you know, know what you don’t know. Don’t don’t be be interesting, but don’t be a phony and create connections. Knowing people is the name of the game. Put yourself out there. You don’t have to have connections to build connections. When I started in national sports media business, I knew zero people with any kind of relevance in national sports media. And now I know pretty much all of them. I mean, all the people to be honest with you. so you can get there. Be willing to grind. Be willing to not make a whole lot of money at first because sometimes that’s the way that it has to go. You need to want it and live it and be it and um lean into the stuff you’re good at. That’s my short answer. Next question. Johnny Bucks. I wonder if the new head coach next year will prefer Cam or will uh they will prefer Cam. Next question. Tim Mills first. Love your golf hat collection. Thank you, Tim. I appreciate that question. How much control will head coach wield in offensive philosophy? I’m assuming you mean the next head coach. Play calling or well I wonder if he means this this current head coach. I don’t know. I’m going to take it to mean the current head coach because I can’t possibly know about the next head coach. So the current interim head coach, how much power will he wield in the offensive philosophy? Well, he was the senior offensive adviser. So he’s an offensive guy. Uh he’s worked with Phil Rivers before. Like he’s he’s done this before, right? Worked with Trevor Simeon in Denver. I mean, come on. I think that he’ll have a pretty I mean, he’s the head coach. He’ll have a pretty big hand in it. Bo will continue to call plays. I I’ve not been super uh jazzed, by the way, that Bo’s called plays to be honest with you. I’m not sure the Titans have either. I I I think that uh taking that away from Callahan, which was an impetus from at least management, if not ownership itself, and I kind of lean towards probably both. Uh Callahan gave that away. It was taken away. He also didn’t decide who to give it to, by the way. Um, I I think that was a mistake, but they were trying to salvage something. Next question. Jack Longley question. Can we stop saying the perception of Amy is dysfunction? Time to admit she’s just a terrible owner and is indeed a dysfunctional person. Oh, I see. She wants to win, but everything she touches burns. Let me say this about Amy. I’m not going to sit here and bash Amy. I am going to say that the I’m an optimistic guy by nature. So, if you think this is just too rosy, then fine, whatever. There is a good chunk of the league whose ownership you cannot honestly say is interested primarily in winning. Not every owner in the NFL is all in on winning no matter the cost, no matter the what whatever it takes. There are plenty of owners that are interested in making money. There are plenty of owners that are interested in being relevant even if it means never quite being competitive to get to the mountain top. Amy Adams Strunk is one of the owners in the NFL that I believe I really believe this genuinely earnestly has winning at the top of her list of priorities. She wants to win. The unfortunate part is that she’s not very good at it so far. She’s it’s been no good. So, the good news is that you can hope that eventually she’ll figure it out. Maybe she gets the right person in her ear or the experience eventually accumulates and she she finds a path. Maybe she just hits on a an awesome coach or an awesome quarterback and that can kind of buoy organization. Anyways, so there’s hope that eventually she figures it out because she does genuinely want nothing but for this franchise to win and be honorable again. You can’t say that if you’re like covering the Saints or you’re a fan of the Saints and you got Mickey Lumis who you know is just not bros just not trying to win. Like you’re just stuck. Welcome to purgatory buddy. That’s not the case with the Titans. They just have an owner that wants deeply to win and has so far not been super great at it. Next question. Awaken totheternal.com. Will Mike McCoy be able to scheme for Cam Word’s skill set? I don’t think Mike McCoy is going to be scheming a whole lot to be honest with you. Like it’s it’s too late for that. We’ve got the scheme. The book’s installed. They can flip pages and and and point to different things in the playbook, but the book is the book, man. Look, they can add some plays here or there, install them, remove some plays here or there, take them out of the install, but um I I’m not super positive that it will be a substantial change outside of maybe a oneweek bump. We’ll see. Let me go back to the Twitter to knock some of these off real quick. So, a couple more questions here. Jack Weber, Jack, hello. Says, “How are who are your top five coaches you want the Titans to take a look at or interview?” It is so so way too early to do that. But since you asked, I’ll try to answer anyways because I put together a hotboard yesterday of 10 names that I’m initially interested in. So, I’ll pick the first five that I like. I think Mike McCarthy would be a good choice in terms of a floor, a guy that knows how to do it. A guy that has been around the block and is can be a trans at the very least a transitional coach in the sense that you establish something and you get the ball rolling. Um, I really like the idea of Cliff Kingsbury, to be honest with you, be his second time as a head coach. I really like what he’s done in Washington. I think that he was in a place in Arizona where everybody that works there is doomed to fail forever until the end of time at this point because that place is just brutal. So, I wouldn’t mind giving Cliff another try. I wouldn’t mind giving Hart another try. Come home, Arthur Smith. It’s time. You’ve dealt with Amy Adams before. You’ve dealt with Nashville before. I I think that he given a second chance could be a good head coach. So, I kind of like that idea. Let’s see. Um, who else do I put on this list? I’ll put Robert Salah just because I think that he gets a lot of flack for a Jet situation that was doomed to fail. I look at the fact that that was a defense that was the best in the league when he was there and then he left and they almost immediately became the worst in the league by DVOA. So, he was doing something right. And is he a defensive coach? Yes. But I think he’s a darn good defensive coach and I think he’s a darn good motivator of men. And again, he’s a second time head coach would be. So, I think that, you know, he’s learned a thing or two. And then last one, I’ll say, uh, let me throw a dart on Jesse Mentor. He’d be a first- time head coach and a defensive head coach. Don’t love either of those things, but he’s just so darn impressive in Los Angeles. What he’s done for the Chargers defense. He’s got experience in the NFL and in college. He’s got a he’s got a Jim Harbaugh pedigree, so he’s learned from the best. I love Jim Harbaugh. So, let me throw Jesse Mentor in there. That’s my initial way too way too short list. And I probably am going to regret leaving out Joe Brady, but I’m kind of scared off the first time head coach, offensive wonderkin guy right now. You can imagine why. Um, let’s see what else from Twitter. Ryan Smith, why do fans in media expect Amy Adam to speak on these football topics when she hired someone to do it for her? Brinker PK probing seemed more personal than professional in nature. I will not uh stand up for the nature of how my colleagues ask questions. I can only speak for how I choose to ask questions. But I will say that um I don’t expect her to speak if she’s not making decisions. But if she is making decisions, I I would like her to eventually to speak at some time. I think that’s reasonable. This I don’t think that’s unfair. Um Ben Pedigo, I’m not in any way defending Amy Adams, but I still don’t understand the delay in naming McCoy being so much added fuel to this fire. Brinker and Borgani said they talked with Amy Adam Trunk on Monday, decided to fire Callahan and had to release it before the scheduled presser then maybe wanted. I don’t know. This this trails off. I I just think the timing is funky to be honest with you. I I find it I find it fishy. I find it embarrassing and a little bit dysfunctional. So I we just disagree on that. And finally from Twitter, Brian Callahan’s burner. Oh, it’s pretty upfront. Did you notice that when mentioning the staff, he specifically mentioned Randy and said more in the run game. Do you think we’ll see a change in how many screen plays are called? I don’t know. I think a lot of them were called in Vegas and they basically didn’t work at all. They worked better in Arizona. I think that they will be called more sparingly and more um more intentionally going forward. And I hope that they run them behind the guys on this team that can actually block and not the receivers that can’t because a lot of the time that’s the problem there. Okay, back to our questions here in the comments. We’ll keep going rapid fire style and then get out of here in just a minute. What do we have next? Ross Ben Hall Eastston, why exactly would you hold off firing a coach who would be inevitably inevitably fired? Well, again, upside downside. I actually kind of I’m glad you brought this up because I cut myself off earlier. I got so sidetracked with my ADD talk that I left half the argument out. The upside is that maybe ma maybe magically things get better, but we can’t any nobody can really quite put their finger on how because it’s the same staff and the same players. The downside to me is pretty tremendous because like I mentioned at the top of the show, Brian Callahan still had these guys running the same direction for for better or for worse. Now that he is gone and the head of the snake is cut off and at least narratively dysfunction is is flying around. Chaos reigns. This is typically where you see players start to think about their next contract. It’s kind of fend for yourself season. Coaches the suddenly their doors start to close and they’re in there looking for the next job. people’s focus is on their future and themselves and not on the team and the right now. And that means it could get ugly in a hurry. I’m not accusing this team of being that. I sure hope that they aren’t because it is early. There’s a lot there’s a lot of football we have to cover left. Please don’t please don’t crater in middle October. But it could and that’s something that this team is like the folks that made the decision yesterday are going to have to fend off. So good luck with that. Next question. Grover’s Biscuits. How much of what they’re seeing with Cam specifically do you think impacted the timing of it? It’s the primary impact. This I was told last night explicitly by somebody privately that this was they would best describe it as a quarterbackd driven decision. Not to be clear, not to say that the quarterback was like, “Fire this guy.” That certainly did not happen. But um the the fact that like they can’t say this out loud, man. The fact that the quarterback looks like he’s regressing 6 weeks in is unacceptable to ownership, unacceptable to to anybody. And whether that’s the coach’s fault or not, whether it’s the roster’s fault or not, frankly, at the end of the day, the folks in charge didn’t care. They saw what looked like regression and they felt like they had to do something about it. So, it was a it was a quarterback driven decision. And we’ll see if this actually helps the quarterback in any way or hurts him, ruining his continuity. I don’t know. Next question. Devin Canfield, will a head coach really make a difference? A a a new one next year? I mean, yes. I I’d say that the the two most important positions in football are your head coach and your quarterback. It’s head coaching in football matters more than head coaching in any other major sport in the whole world. So, it it will matter. But, I think to your point and to my point earlier about Brian Callahan maybe never standing a chance with this roster, head coaches can’t do the playing. They they can be really good head coaches, but they’re not miracle workers. And this roster until it improves that ultimately this roster getting better at football, whether it’s the players on the roster getting better or them replacing the players on the play on the roster with better players, that’s what’s going to make this team better. And a coach can only go so far in doing that. Next question. Johnny FNC, what are the vibes from the players? A great question. Something that I will find out tomorrow. Tomorrow is the first locker room availability of the week. I am looking forward to it. We’re going to be in there, I’m sure, the entire time talking to the players on and off the record, trying to get a feel for I I’ve heard secondhand from folks in the building about how players have reacted to this, but I want to see it firsthand and I think it’ll be really interesting. So, tune in tomorrow, follow on Twitter, follow on ADZ Sports. I’ll be writing about it. I’m sure it’ll be interesting. Next question. Amnesia with the super chat. Thank you, Amnesia. So, what happens if this team takes off and wins? What happens is we all get to be happy again. What do you mean? That’d be fantastic. How’s it going to happen? I don’t know. It would be the quarterback suddenly figuring it out in a big way. And it would be a lot of the other players around him suddenly also figuring out in a big way. I I don’t know what would cause that besides just enough time eventually something clicks. Maybe the lights come on. Otherwise, I have no idea. But what what happens is uh happiness again, which would be great. Next question. The Titans Report podcast. Do you see new plays in the playbook this week on offense? I really don’t. This week in particular, there’s so much influx. People are trying to keep their head above water right now, installing new plays. I really I really don’t think so. Next question. Kyle Robinson East, did Mike McCoy do anything offensively when he was with the Chargers that think that you think could help Cam? I’m I’m not I don’t want to disparage Mike McCoy, but like no. I’m also not like an expert of Mike McCoy offenses with the Chargers. That was a long time ago and I’ve not gone back and like re-watched their entire seasons or anything, but um I mean he was a head coach that that did not work in out in in LA or in San Diego at the time. He was twice a coordinator and that didn’t work out. He went to Jacksonville and was a part of a Jacksonville team that a major collapse like an all-time collapse of a team. So we we’ll see. He’s done it before, but has he done it super well? Debatable. Next question. Brandon Tyler, is Mike Borani going to have any say? Last night didn’t seem like it was. Yeah. I mean, here’s the deal. Mike Borghazi is in charge of the roster. He has all the say in the football team, right? That that’s that’s true. Last night, all of the questions were really for Amy Adams. And because Chad Brinker is there in Herstead, I I think inappropriately, but that’s what he’s being tasked with doing. He’s the one that’s going to field a lot of the questions because Chad is the one that’s been empowered to speak for Amy, not Mike. Mike to an extent by proxy, but not explicitly. Chad has. Next question. Are we getting close here, Ross? Are we? Okay, we’re getting close. All right, we’re keep going. Keep grinding. Jonathan Cavly, we’ll get to all these. I promise. How does Brinker continue to survive? Why not give Borghanszi the full reigns? He continues to survive because he runs the bones of the team. Brinker or Borghazi still runs the football team. So they’re kind of a tandem and they do different things and Brinker is technically in charge of Borghazi, but he allows Borghazi to do his job and Brinker does his job and Amy’s not going to I mean you’d be you’d be you’d be uprooting the entire organization if you fired Brinker, especially in season. It doesn’t make any sense. The the bones of making a billion dollar Yeah. a billion-dollar organization run on a day-to-day basis as a like the business. You can’t just take you can’t cut off the head like that in week six. Next question. Damen Mroy, thoughts on getting a defensive-minded head coach. I mean, my thoughts are pretty they’re pretty canned, right? Uh defensive head coaches can work in the NFL. In the modern NFL, it’s really nice to have an offensive head coach, especially if they bring their scheme, especially especially if they bring their their play calling along with them so that you don’t worry about getting your coordinators poached and there being a brain drain and constantly having to change over systems for your your quarterback. Like, that’s really nice. But also, I I’m scared by the idea of head coaches that are play callers for the first time and or are head coaches for the first time like Brian Callahan was. I don’t think he’s the only example recently of guys that it’s been too much too quickly. It’s like taking on two new full-time jobs if you’re being a head coach for the first time and a play caller for the first time. It’s just it’s it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous. So, would a defensive guy be like off my list because he’s a defensive guy? No. No. It’s more of an uphill climb if I’m being honest, but he’s not off the list. Next question. Billy Sullivan. Realistically, does or will this head coaching position be sought after? It’s a great question. it will be attractive because of Cam and because of maybe the the number one overall pick or whatever pick you have in the draft. And that’s kind of the end of the list. There’s a third reason. The third reason is because it’s one of 32 head coaching jobs in the NFL. And that that’s always always always going to be a baseline of attractive for whatever reason. Um so beyond that, I don’t know, man. We’ll see. We will see. Next question. Two more of these, I think. Ben and Nashville. Switching gears a little. Scale of 1 to 10. How worried are you about Cam Ward? I am [Music] three and a half, which has risen from what it was after week one. I was probably like a one or one and a half. I’m not panicked because he’s a rookie and these things happen. And if he’s the guy, he’ll survive. If he’s the guy, he’ll survive. But it is true that organizations ruin young quarterbacks more often than young quarterbacks ruin organizations. And I really hope they don’t ruin Cam. And I know they really hope they don’t ruin Cam and they think this is in the best interest of Cam. We’ll see if it is. Next question. Curtis, any truth to that Reddit post, Eastston? I saw this. I was monitoring the situation this morning. I don’t I mean I can’t say one way or another. A good deal of it sounds kind of fanfictiony, but I can’t I can’t explicitly deny all of it. So, I guess we’ll all just have to wonder, won’t we? You Reddit insiders, you can decide whether or not to trust them. All right, that’s our show. Ross, thank you for steering the ship for us there. Big help on the back end. Thank you to all of you for your fantastic questions. Love doing these Q&A. I hope that you guys got some answers to your questions, some clarity on where this team is headed. We will be at the facility tomorrow in the locker room for the first time post Brian Callahan’s firing as well as talking to Cam Ward for the first time. Talk to Mike McCoy once again tomorrow. Big big day of content. I’ve got some written articles lined up for the morning and then of course some stuff in the afternoon. JT and Austin will be back with you on the morning show and then Buck will be back on prime time tomorrow night. Until then, tons of content to consume as the Titans prepare to face the Patriots on Sunday. I’m East Freeze. Have a great rest of your night. There’s a very low percentage of this uh that is smiles and glory holds.

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