Heading into the 2025 season, Tennessee Titans fans were torn on whether Brian Callahan would be the head coach to lead this team into a winning era. While the team did end up with No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, Will Levis had committed some egregious turnovers throughout 2024, so the hope was that things would be different with Cam Ward in 2025.
It turns out that Levis making bonehead plays just masked the deficiencies that Callahan had as a head coach.
The first massive red flag this season was the Elic Ayomanor "elbow catch" situation against the Denver Broncos, where Callahan seemed to be confused about what a catch in the NFL was. That put heavy scrutiny on everything that Callahan did going forward, and just two weeks later came one of the most damning series of events that Titans fans had ever seen.
Titans HC Brian Callahan is running out of time after 0-3 start, another critical coaching era versus the Indianapolis Colts in Week 3
Down by 11 points, the Titans decided to set up for a 57-yard field goal. The Indianapolis Colts took a timeout, followed by a Titans timeout. Callahan's indecisiveness to kick or try a fourth-down conversion partially led to a delay of game penalty to push it back to a 62-yard field goal attempt, which Joey Slye missed. The Colts effortlessly marched down and scored a field goal of their own before halftime.
It was a pathetic display of football acumen. It was at that point that fans started relentlessly booing Callahan and the team heading into the tunnel. Those boos bled over into halftime, where owner Amy Adams Strunk watched Titans CEO and President Burke Nihill induct Mike Keith into the team's ring of honor.
An already riled-up crowd witnessed the team's owner refuse to step up to the microphone to talk about Mike Keith, seemingly because she was too afraid to face the boos she knew she would receive.
It was an embarrassing catastrophe, and if there is anything we know about Titans ownership, it is that they hate to feel embarrassed more than they hate losing football games. Over those 20 minutes, Callahan's fate took a dangerous direction.
The question now is when, not if, Callahan is fired. More evidence of that came on Tuesday morning when it was announced that Callahan had relinquished play-calling duties to QB coach Bo Hardegree. It's a last-ditch attempt to save his job.
It's the beginning of the end when an offensive-minded coach loses play-calling duties. Hardegree's success or failure could still reflect negatively on Callahan. Fans should feel free to start coming up with their list of dream candidates for Mike Borgonzi and Chad Brinker to hire as the team's next head coach.