NFL Insider Ian Rapoport Breaks Down the Tennessee Titans’ Top HC Candidates | The Rich Eisen Show

NFL Insider Ian Rapoport Breaks Down the Tennessee Titans’ Top HC Candidates | The Rich Eisen Show

You mentioned Kelvin Ridley in there and he’s part of a Titans team that my understanding has been and I believe you’ve alluded to this on TV as well over these next few weeks that they’re going to be open for business. It’s not a fire sale in terms of hey just get guys out of here. We’ll take whatever we can get, but certainly they know they need a lot of picks. This is a groundup rebuild. They got to get it right. They’re obviously going to have a new head coach after firing Brian Callahan on Monday. But at the same time, if you’re trying to get this thing going with Cam Ward, trading one of your running backs, trading one your number one wide receiver, trading anybody else, like there is a point at which it’s like, all right, is this going to potentially put the quarterback even further behind as we move forward, which creates an interesting dynamic there for for Chad Brinker and Mike Borgansi. Yeah, and it does seem like the interest from outside has come at on defense for them, not on offense. Now, I did have a team ask about their offensive lineman, and I would be surprised if they traded an offensive line, maybe a backup, but I’d be surprised if they traded a starting offensive lineman, even though those guys are talented, haven’t played great, but are talented, um, and probably would get some draft capital because like part of what you’re going to try to do the next, you know, however many games is try to get the quarterback better, right? I mean, this is a it should be a desirable job. Um, I think Mike Boranzi is a a really good young GM who is learning on the job. I think Tad Brinker is trying to do a good job of building that building out as far as analytics and infrastructure and kind of catching that place up from, you know, uh, essentially where where it has been. um you know but but to get Cam Ward playing better would certainly help that job’s desiraability. The other thing I think it does like let’s say they trade some guys like let’s say they trade you know Ardan Key would be a good example of someone previous regime uh you know making some money probably someone they could trade well it’s like if you’re going to deal with a new staff coming in and having their own vision of players you might as well give that group picks to build with so you know certainly some trade would trades would make sense for the Titans. We were live on air on Monday when the Titans announced via press release on social media that they had fired uh Brian Callahan. Obviously, you know, you and I both know Cali. He’s a great guy. You heard Chad Brinker talk about he’s he’s a good football coach, too. This just it wasn’t working. They didn’t want to do it this early. They just felt like something had to change right now to get the quarterback and the whole team uh showing more progress. But then the attention immediately turns to who is the next co coach going to be? You certainly raised an interesting point here, which is the desiraability of a job where there have been 8 to 10 major moves in the power structure on the football side in the past 3 years, but it’s still one of 32. Cam Ward’s got a lot of fans within the NFL. If if you are drawing up the perfect head coach to take over the Titans next season, what does it look like or who is it? So, first of all, I do think it’s a desirable job. Um, mostly because it is a job that’s open, right? I mean, that’s, you know, that’s a very good thing. Um, and if you’re a young candidate or even an older candidate and there’s a job that’s open, it’s good because you could get it. Um, and we’ve seen jobs that are, you know, quote unquote not great places, like the Chicago Bears, and then Ben Johnson comes in, flips Kale Williams around, they tighten up the room, they improve the offensive line, and the Bears are actually maybe kind of good. Um, so yes, um, I would say if you want to look at where to go, um, it doesn’t seem like there’s a Ben Johnson in this mix. It doesn’t seem like there’s a can’t miss candidate. a couple um you know a couple that have meant they’ve been mentioned to me um I would say Matt Naggie who has a close relationship with Mike Banzi the OC and with the Chiefs you know former coach of the year was a good coach with the Bears until he wasn’t and sort of has gone back around and and um you know sort of used that experience I’d say he’d be a name to watch that would be one Arthur Smith former OC in Tennessee another former head coach didn’t have a quarterback back in Atlanta. Um, you know, but someone who’s done and I think was a good head coaching candidate, I think would be a good one. And then you have some other like really good coordinators like the Joe Brady of the world. Lanarumo is another one done a really nice job in Indie. I think the main thing for me is everyone’s going to focus on who can fix this quarterback and who can get the quarterback playing well. There are plenty of examples of really strong defensive coaches who have turned places around because they just hired good coordinators to build infrastructure around them. Like Dan Quinn is not a quarterback guru, but the commanders are doing just fine. Like I would more focus on leading and you know who can get the room better as opposed to who’s the sort of quarterback guru. Well, and they had that guy in Mike Varbable obviously for a long time. There were various issues, a lot of them generated by Varel himself that ended with him leaving Tennessee and now going to New England, who by the way, they go into I remember that they go into Tennessee this Sunday to face Mike McCoy in his interim coach uh debut. It it is an interesting point, too, because there are not a lot of just talking to people within the league, as I know you do, there aren’t a lot of those clear, dialed up, hot candidates. You know, Joe Brady is probably the closest thing to a Ben Johnson, but Ben Johnson was the guy for three years and then finally last year was the first time he was like, “Okay, I’m really going to do this.” He had a big offer from the Raiders. He ends up choosing the Bears. You also mentioned Dan Quinn. The biggest hire he had was Cliff Kingsbury, who only became available because things went sideways in his contract negotiated with the Raiders, as you remember, to be the offensive coordinator. Cliff is an interesting one because if you think of where Cam Ward has had his success going all the way back to Incarnate Word, he was running the air raid offense. It is a very similar type of a scheme to the one that Cliff Kingsbury runs. You could see him fitting in that town. I wouldn’t rule that out. I also wouldn’t rule out if you want to get back to just, hey, we got to establish a core competency here. Mike McCarthy is a guy who has done it in multiple different places. Had a relationship with Chad Brinker going back to Green Bay. It’s just a matter of, you know, hiring a 60-year-old coach isn’t going to be for everyone. Some people want to hire the younger coach here. It’s it’s a really interesting thing to navigate. But in terms of, you know, who the hot candidates are going to be, it’s a short list. And I also wonder, as much as we can speculate, Ian, about, you know, what happens in some of these places, obviously Miami has been talked about uh plenty through the course of this season. That’s another one. um you know whether or not the potential posity of clear-cut head coaching candidates might make some of these owners go you know what let’s just give another year to somebody because we’ll you know there’s just not a guy who we are convinced is a clear upgrade yeah and you know I would say two years ago that kind of happened right was it two years ago when there’s just like I think it ended up being four or five right yes yeah and then it’s cyclical it averages seven per year but there’s some years we have five and there’s other years we got eight years 10. Yeah. So, uh the hot candidate’s an interesting one for me, right? So, like I would have said two weeks ago Joe Brady definitely getting a job and then you know the Bills struggle a little bit and it’s like okay well now he’s sort of not as hot. I don’t know that any of that matters to be honest because what we found is that hot candidates really sort of don’t matter very much. I mean, Brian Callahan was hired by the Titans because the Panthers were trying to get him on a plane, I’m pretty sure, to hire him or at least to give him a really good look. And the Titans were like, “We’re just going to do this. We’re just going to hire this guy.” And that’s how hot he was because two places were kind of fighting over him, right? And he was the first I believe he was the first hireer in that first or second hire in that cycle. I’m pretty sure he So that’s now that was the year that Burrow had the wrist. So I think they weren’t in the playoffs. So, he had a kind of a jump on on people there if I remember the years correctly. Um, but like Liam Cohen is an interesting one for me. I don’t know how many people had Liam Cohen as a sort of hot candidate. Turned out at the end he was hot for one team. He ended up in dramatic fashion, uh, which we broke. Um, getting hired by that team and has proved to be like a really good hire. So, like it’s really just and like I would say Dave Canales, who a lot of people doubted would be really good, has like I don’t know that the Panthers are perfect, but they’re kind of playing some good football. Uh, and maybe look like they could be a team that at least would push for the playoffs this year. So, maybe that was kind of a good hire, too. And so, it’s like the conventional wisdom doesn’t always mean a ton and the hot candidates sort of don’t always work out. So, the fact that the Titans have like two months to figure this out is probably a good thing. Hey, you made it all the way to the end. Thanks for that.

NFL Insider Ian Rapoport and Rich Eisen Show guest host Tom Pelissero discuss if the Titans will be sellers at the trade deadline in the wake of firing head coach Brian Callahan and which candidates would be the best fit for Tennessee.

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