Titans front office hints at Brian Callahan’s future job security in 2025

Titans front office hints at Brian Callahan’s future job security in 2025

The Tennessee Titans hope they’re about to enter a new era as a franchise. Cam Ward is the presumptive face of the team for the foreseeable future. Mike Borggoni and Chad Brinker’s revamped front office is taking a new approach to building this team back up. A new stadium is on its way in Nashville. And the Titans are in a rare moment of change. One of the big changes they made back in January was firing GM Ranthon. And that change was almost an even bigger one as reported by ESPN. But I recently spoke with members of the front office both on and off the record and I think the window for coaching change is closed right now. I think Brian Callahan is safe in 2025 and it has more to do with the path this franchise is on than his personal performance. Here’s what we’ve learned in the past week or so and what I think it means. [Music] If you’re part of the Tennessee Faithful, you know just how many years the Titans have shaved off your life with the emotional roller coaster of sports. Or maybe the roller coaster of life is messing with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals. The New Year’s is a blank space for you to write a new story. BetterHelp makes it easier to get started. They are our incredible sponsor for this video. Regardless, if you have a clinical mental health issue like depression or anxiety, or if you’re just a human going through a hard time, therapy can give you the tools you need to approach your life in a very different way. That’s where our sponsor, BetterHelp, comes into play. BetterHelp’s mission is to make therapy more affordable and more accessible. And this is an important mission because finding a therapist can be really hard, especially when you’re limited to the options in your area. Easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost if it’s not the right fit. BetterHelp’s platform makes finding a therapist easier because it’s online and remote. BetterHelp can match you to a professional therapist in as little as a few days. Plus, with our link, you get 10% off your first month. Start fresh any day of the year with BetterHelp. Click the link in the description or go to betterhelp.comzports and get 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp. ESPN Titans reporter Terron Davenport. My boy and national reporter Jeremy Fowler released an article on Monday detailing the Titans plan for Cam Ward looking back on this year’s process and looking forward to what the future may hold. It’s a good read, so check it out. It’s in the link below. Here’s the excerpt that I want to talk about, though. This is on Callahan’s job security, and it raised a lot of eyebrows when they published this, and it’s pertinent to the information I have to share from the front office in this video. Quote, Amy Adam fired Carthon on January 7th, then turned to Brinker to fix the problem. Brinker handpicked Mike Borzi, a longtime Kansas City lieutenant, as GM. Both Borggoni and Brinker come from places that value longevity, which requires patience. There was consideration given to completely cleaning house and sending Callahan on his way along with Carthon. Multiple Titans sources confirmed Callahan and Carthon had a close relationship and having the number one overall pick gave Tennessee an opportunity to bring in a new general manager, coach, and rookie quarterback all at the same time. But the front office took an honest look at the talent on the roster and factored that into Callahan’s record in his first season. the front office didn’t lose sight of Callahan being one of the league’s in- demand coaching candidates when the Titans hired him.” End quote. Now, TD is a friend and he did a great job with this piece. I’m glad he got it out there and on the record. That being said, I’m surprised by the reaction to this revelation because respectfully, duh. Of course, the team considered firing Callahan after finishing dead last in the NFL. Amy Adams Strunk surely looked around and considered firing just about everybody on her payroll. But more importantly in terms of a timeline, this is a team gearing up to take a franchise quarterback with the first overall pick. And this is where responsible team building and hiring firing processes come into play. Now, last week when I was in Flowery Branch, Georgia for Titans Falcons joint practices, a handful of us on the Titans beat sat down with Titans assistant GM Dave Ziegler. He spoke on the record and we talked about the team’s rebuilding process. The emphasis and importance of continuity to those in charge of this roster was made crystal clear to me that day. Here’s what Ziggler had to say about the role stability plays in successful organizations in the NFL. Quote, “Continuity with your personnel department and your coaching staff and the continuity of the coaching staff and the players.” When you look at most of the successful organizations, there’s a level of that, right? So, I think it’s really important. You have to understand on the personnel side what each cook has to cook with. How good of a meal can they cook with what they have. So I think you have to have expectations on what you’re looking for and what the growth needs to be. But when you look at the teams that have had long-term success, there’s a lot of continuity with the coaching staff. And so that’s the ideal goal. And so we’ll measure that by how these guys grow and how they improve. And there’s a level of expectation I think that needs to be appropriate based on what they have in their room too. End quote. Continuity is important for everybody trying to develop on this roster, of course, but the stakes are the highest with Cam Ward. Here’s what Ziggler had to say about what a lack of stability would mean for their new quarterback. Quote, “There’s a saying that organizations fail quarterbacks more than quarterbacks fail themselves.” And you’re seeing a kind of rebirth of Sam Darnold, right? A rebirth of Baker Mayfield. guys that went in and had a couple different coordinators in two or three years, didn’t have continuity on their offensive line, got hit a lot. And I always make the comparison of like when a quarterback comes in and you start to make changes. The first year they’re learning Spanish 101. You change the OC or the head coach, now they’re learning French, and then you do it again. Now they’re learning Italian. And they’ve never had a chance. they can’t speak any of it because they’ve never had the chance to actually really integrate themselves with the language, if you will, or the playbook in the offensive system.” End quote. Nurture versus nature truly is a massive part of success in the NFL. And for a position as difficult and critical as quarterback, it can be almost everything. Recent high-profile examples like Mayfield, Darnold, and Gino Smith all appear to be strong evidence of that. And there are recent examples of tremendous young growth due to healthy continuity too which Ziggler pointed out. Quote, “This position is one of the hardest positions to play in sports.” And it’s a tough position to play. So in an ideal world, that continuity can be very impactful on a quarterback’s level of success. Josh Allen’s a good example of that. He had Brian Dable for the first four years of his career, and you saw a lot of growth in Josh Allen from where he started. And so I think that continuity to me can be really really important. I’m glad Ziggler chose to go on the record with us to share these thoughts because frankly it’s a sentiment that has been continuously shared with me behind the scenes this year as well. The people in charge around here really truly want to get this franchise off this dysfunctional merrygoround. They really want to embrace patience and they really don’t want to screw up Cam Ward. That’s the monster they’re afraid is hiding behind the fire Brian Callahan door. Failing Cam. This is the primary reason why I would bet good money today that Callahan and his staff are given more than just 2025, let alone a mere portion of it to make things work. I have good reasons to believe the folks above Brian Callahan like him and believe in him working out. But I don’t even see those things as the primary reason why I feel good about him surviving this year. In a weird way, his survival might have more to do with Cam Ward than it does with Brian Callahan’s personal performance. The powers that be are terrified of ruining Cam. And good on them, because they absolutely should be. Doing right by your first overall pick, lottery ticket should be an instinct that overrides all other lesser urges and desires. It should feel like driving home with your baby from the hospital and knowing there’s no handbook for this, but that you’ll do everything you can think of to make it work. And the best teacher is the history of those who’ve had success doing this before you. That history is what Chad Brinker and Mike Boronzi are leaning on. Boronzi obviously comes to Tennessee off the heels of an all-time run of success and stability in Kansas City. And Brinker cut his teeth in Green Bay with an education at the Ron Wolf School of Team Building. The Packers are the model of stability since Wol and his acquisition of Brett Favre set that organization straight. These two know firsthand what it takes to not fail a young franchise quarterback, and they know firsthand what a healthy dose of organizational patience and perspective can do for you. I also believe that one of the fundamental reasons why they feel patience will pay off with Callahan is because of where exactly his strengths and weaknesses in year 1 were. A lot of coaches get fired very early because it’s evident they don’t know how to scheme up a modern football team or they can’t adjust as the league es and flows or that they can’t handle situational football decisions or that their players simply don’t respect them. You just lose the locker room. I don’t believe that’s what the decision makers for this team are worried about with Callahan. They think that he checked those boxes for the most part in his first year. The areas for growth in Callahan’s second year are mostly capital H, capital C, head coaching things. Management, delegation, versatility, the kinds of executive things a coordinator by trade has very little experience with. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given Callahan’s background. And the early returns on his growth as a coach in these areas have been really positive. If you paid attention throughout the summer, you’ve probably seen glimpses of this in the offseason program in how his players and coaches just speak of the operation. But it’s the experience that this front office has in those elements of executive leadership paired with Callahan’s self-awareness and willingness to grow that I think gives his boss’s confidence in him going forward. I think there’s a we can get him there kind of mindset with some of these things while he’s already got the technical elements of coaching down. One more touch point on gauging Callahan’s future in Tennessee is Cam Ward’s words. The young quarterback’s success is both dependent on Callahan and I think likely to prop Callahan’s job security up this year no matter what within reason. Ward is a smart guy and he seems to have a keen understanding of this symbiotic relationship. He’s done a very good job so far of being proactive with pre- campaigning for Callahan to stay in the good graces of fans and leadership alike. Last week in Atlanta, he gave this thoughtful answer on the continuity he wants to see in Tennessee. Quote, “I just think Callahan’s going to put me in the best position to succeed.” That’s for my quarterback coach, Coach Bo Hardigree, and offensive coordinator, Coach Nick Holtz. I’m trying to play as long as I can for the Tennessee Titans with those three at the helm. Those guys, they continuously give me feedback, even when I don’t want feedback. They continuously get me better when I ask questions, and they answer every question to the little details as much as I need it. I’m blessed to have those three in the same room with me. They push me to be great. I want to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. And I just think the more that we continuously build our relationship, us three, coach Callahan, continuously getting to know what I like on the field and me also being smart with the ball, gaining that trust every day for him to have those play calls where he wants to go deep or run quick game. I just think it will help all three of us out in the long run. End quote. He reiterated the importance of continuity to him after practice this past week. I want stability. I want to be able to build people, Cam told us at the podium. As long as he’s the player on track to become the face of this franchise, throwing his weight around like that will be effective. And in the event he realizes Callahan’s staff is detrimental to his success, he’s likely to still have the cache in the next year or two to change his mind and have the opposite impact. Being the first overall pick quarterback a team is banking on tends to have that effect. Cam is playing his cards wisely, and the bottom line here is that I think the front office is trying to do the same. responsible organizations with good foresight know that the time to make a change as fundamental to your structure as the coaching staff when in the midst of trying to hit big on a young quarterback is either right away or a couple years down the road when he’s gotten his feet under him. If they had any significant doubt about Callahan’s ability to figure this thing out, they should have sent him packing in January. They decided they didn’t and now they’re going to have to try to be patient enough to not consider that again until Cam can at least get a year or two under his belt. Now you just have to keep everybody in line through the ups and downs of a rocky season, sticking to the plan. And that can be easier said than done in the NFL. But this leadership group seems awfully confident they can pull it off. For a toz sports Nashville, I’m Eastston Freeze.

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