{"id":651132,"date":"2026-01-03T16:51:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T16:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/651132\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T16:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T16:51:16","slug":"tennessee-titans-head-coaching-search-primer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/651132\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Titans head coaching search primer"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>. Borgonzi can officially begin the process on Monday morning by lining up interviews that can start as early as Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Here is everything you need to know about the Titans\u2019 head coaching search:<\/p>\n

Titans coaching search timeline<\/p>\n

The Titans can begin virtual interviews on Tuesday, January 6th, for any coaches who don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, January 7th, they can interview coaches from teams that have a first-round bye whose team played on Sunday, January 4th.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Finally, on Wednesday, January 14th, they can begin interviews with coaches whose team played and lost in the Monday, January 12th, wild-card round.<\/p>\n

Zac Lyons put together a fantastic spreadsheet laying out the timelines for potential coaching candidates:<\/p>\n

What are the Titans looking for in their next head coach?<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t work previously.<\/p>\n

Titans\u2019 rumored head coaching candidates:<\/p>\n

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\u2019 list by various reports (in no particular order):<\/p>\n

Matt Nagy – current Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 offensive coordinatorMike McCarthy – unemployed, most recently the head coach of the Dallas CowboysLou Anarumo – current Indianapolis Colts\u2019 defensive coordinatorRobert Saleh – current San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinatorJeff Haley – current Green Bay Packers\u2019 defensive coordinatorVance Joseph – current Denver Broncos\u2019 defensive coordinatorChris Shula – current Los Angeles Rams\u2019 defensive coordinatorJesse Minter – current Los Angeles Chargers\u2019 defensive coordinatorKlint Kubiak – current Seattle Seahawks\u2019 offensive coordinatorAnthony Weaver – current Miami Dolphins\u2019 defensive coordinatorArthur Smith – current Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 offensive coordinatorAnthony Campanile – current Jacksonville Jaguars\u2019 defensive coordinator<\/p>\n

That is not an exhaustive list, but it is the names that I have seen reported. Zach\u2019s list has a lot of candidates whom he assumes they will talk to, and my guess is that they end up interviewing a lot of the guys on his list. He also has three current head coaches listed, Mike Tomlin, Kevin Stefanski, and John Harbaugh, who may or may not be available pending whether or not they are fired from their current jobs.<\/p>\n

Current favorite to be the next Titans\u2019 coach<\/p>\n

You have to start with Nagy here. He has the obvious connection to Borgonzi from their time together with the Chiefs. Dan Pompei mentioned in his article about Nagy at The Athletic this week that Nagy helped Borgonzi prepare for GM interviews last year.<\/p>\n

After Nagy, it\u2019s tough to really have a favorite. The guys with Green Bay connections would have been next before the report that this is Borgonzi\u2019s show. Chad Brinker will be a part of the process, but it\u2019s not going to be a joint effort between Brinker and Borgonzi as was previously assumed.<\/p>\n

The next few weeks are just the beginning of what is going to be a very busy offseason for the Titans. We will have all of it covered for you here at MCM!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tennessee Titans fired Brian Callahan in October. We have been speculating on potential names for the next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061],"tags":[7,6,526,394,87013,2413,2411,527],"class_list":{"0":"post-651132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennessee-titans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-tennessee","11":"tag-tennessee-titans","12":"tag-tennessee-titans-coaching-staff","13":"tag-tennessee-titans-news","14":"tag-tennesseetitans","15":"tag-titans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115832205138625701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}