The Tennessee Titans need a new OC.
It is hard to stomach watching Arthur Smith leave the Tennessee Titans after such a great year, but fans should wish him nothing but success at his next stop.
Right now it looks like he is going to go to the Atlanta Falcons who have reportedly offered him the Head Coach job, but there is some discussion about going to the Philadelphia Eagles as well. Either way, it is going to be interesting to see if he can get anything out of the quarterbacks in place.
But, we have sung the praises of Arthur Smith all season and now we need to talk about what comes next. The Tennessee Titans are set to have a new coordinator on both sides of the ball, and since I already wrote about the most likely candidates for the DC job (most likely, not necessarily the ones I would most like to see) it is time to make our OC big board.
The good news is that, unlike the DC search which is likely to be limited by people that have worked with Mike Vrabel and Dean Pees in the past, the OC search seems to be wide open. We know that they reached out to Clemson OC Tony Elliott, but he has turned them down.
So what other OC candidates should the Titans have on speed dial?
5. Phil Longo, North Carolina OC
There is a good chance that you don’t even know who this is, but you know who does? A.J. Brown.
As a freshman, A.J. Brown caught just 29 passes for 412 yards and 2 touchdowns. After that season Phil Longo was hired to be the offensive coordinator at Ole Miss and over the next two seasons, A.J. Brown caught 160 passes for over 2,500 yards and 17 touchdowns.
This isn’t just about Longo’s time at Ole Miss though, let’s talk about where he is now.
Longo is the OC at North Carolina where he grabbed headlines by having the best 1-2 punch at running back in college football. They used that tandem to rank top-5 in yards per play and near the top of the NCAA in points per game, but they weren’t limited to the running game.
UNC’s offense had two 1,000 yard receivers in Longo’s first season (2019) and Dynami Brown did it again this season.
An offense that thrives by running the ball but that also shows the ability to showcase two high-level receivers? Does that sound familiar to anyone else?
It isn’t a name that I have seen a lot, but given the connection to A.J. Brown, his recent success, and the similarities to the Tennessee Titans current offense, I would love to see him get an interview for the job.
4. Todd Monken, Georgia OC
Todd Monken is a name that might sound familiar to you if you are an SEC fan and your team had to play Georgia this year, or if you were part of the Marcus Mariota is better than Jameis Winston debate over the middle of the last decade where Monken was the OC for three seasons.
Monken has NFL experience and he has been a position coach for every position on offense except for OL and TE, which is rare to see. What specifically intrigues me is that he feels a lot like Arthur Smith in how he calls his offense.
It seems like Monken wants to run an offense where you line up with two tight ends and commit to the run game, only to pull the ball and run a play action pass as soon as the defense tries to take that away. Titans fans know that game plan well because it led them to 20 regular-season wins over the last two seasons.
What separates him from the rest of the ZBS, play action coaches we have seen, is that he also spent two years with Mike Gundy and Oklahoma State’s high volume passing attack. There he took two future busts in Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon, and he made them lethal weapons.
His stock took a little hit because he was involved with the unorganized mess that was the 2019 Cleveland Browns when he was their OC, but his body of work is interesting and productive enough that I would give him a call.
3. Someone from the L.A. Chargers
Pep Hamilton and Anthony Lynn are both intriguing and they both have different resumes despite working on the same staff last season.
Hamilton is a name that Titans fans are probably familiar with from his time with Indianapolis with Andrew Luck. As soon as the Colts made the decision to let Bruce Arians go instead of giving him the job over Chuck Pagano, they hired then Stanford OC Pep Hamilton to do the same job at the NFL level.
Luck’s connection with Hamilton was clear, but once Luck started getting hurt Hamilton became a scapegoat and was fired. The reason he is here on this list now though is because he kept coaching and taking new opportunities until he got a chance to work with the Chargers this year as the QB coach.
Justin Herbert was considered a raw prospect coming out of college who had tools but just didn’t have the refined skills to be successful early. Well, that was quickly proven to be inaccurate as Herbert went on to have a fantastic rookie season and he kept the Chargers relevant for a little while.
So the two big feathers in Pep Hamilton’s cap are the development of Andrew Luck and Justin Herbert. However, he was a part of some pretty mediocre offenses in between those stints and he seems more fit to take over a team that is going to deal with a rookie quarterback.
You have to stack that up against Anthony Lynn who was a great influence on the Chargers offense as soon as he got the job.
Since he took the job in L.A. here is how the offense ranked in DVOA by year:
2017: 7th
2018: 3rd
2019: 12th with a broken Phillip Rivers
2020: 15th despite Austin Ekeler missing a massive chunk of the season and a rookie quarterback
Maybe the job as a head coach was too big for him and there are clearly some issues with his clock management and decisions late in games, but isn’t that one of the things that Mike Vrabel does best?
Hiring Lynn would give the Titans someone who has a lot of experience and who specializes in making quarterbacks feel comfortable. That seems ideal for the Titans current situation and I would probably lean towards Lynn over Hamilton, but again you can make the argument for either.
2. Someone from the Tennessee Titans
Specifically Keith Carter, but really you could make a case for anyone on this offense coaching staff this season. Carter is probably the top name because he knows the most about how to run this specific offense, but what really sets him apart is what he did this year with a banged-up OL.
But, RB coach Tony Dews and WR coach Rob Moore both did spectacular things with elite talent. A.J. Brown continues to set Titans records and has his eyes set on upholding his resume as one of the most promising receivers to come out in the last decade.
Meanwhile, all Derrick Henry did this season was run for 2,000 yards and become the first back-to-back rushing champion since LaDanian Tomlinson. Dews has spent a lot of time with Henry and helped develop him into a great runner over the course of his career that involved some ups and downs early.
To round out the list, TE coach Todd Downing has experience as an OC in the NFL and he does come from a position that has been a pipeline for other great play-callers from this “tree” of offensive coaching like Arthur Smith and Sean McVay.
Pat O’Hara is the QB coach and if he had any part in the resurgence of Ryan Tannehill then he deserves a mention here, but I don’t know that he has a strong argument over the rest of the staff.
1. Tim Kelly, Houston Texans OC
I will admit that the only reason I really know anything about Tim Kelly is because his brother was obviously the starting right tackle for the Titans this season. However, don’t let that distract you from the fact that he has was on the Texans staff with Mike Vrabel in Houston for the four years that he was there.
Not only that, but in the four matchups where the Titans have faced the Texans with Kelly as the OC, here are the results:
Week 15, 2019: 24 points scored
Week 17, 2019: 14 points scored (no Watson)
Week 6, 2020: 36 points scored
Week 17, 2020: 38 points scored
The last two happened without the interference of Bill O’Brien as well and are probably a better representation of what Tim Kelly can actually do as an OC.
Having Deshaun Watson is nice and it makes an OC look good, but Kelly was calling an offense that had one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL along with a receiver room that was either being traded away, cut, or suspended for PEDs. Despite all of that, Kelly managed to keep this team afloat and might be the only person left in the Texans organization with the respect of Deshaun Watson.
When Watson was asked if he wanted Tim Kelly back in 2021 to call the offense, he said this:
"“Most definitely,” Deshaun Watson said on Monday when asked if he wanted offensive coordinator Tim Kelly to remain with the team. “Tim, over the past two years, has really taken my game to a whole another level.”"
I’m a big believer in trying to hurt other teams in the AFC South while also trying to make your team better. This would accomplish that and Kelly would be familiar with the Titans offense from playing them while also getting great inside info on what the team does best from his brother.
Experience, upside, connections to the current team, support from him players, Kelly seems to have it all.