When the Tennessee Titans fired Brian Callahan early in the season, it was more about getting rid of him instead of setting themselves up to be in a prime position to hire an elite head coaching candidate.
The Titans have already identified 15 candidates during their head coaching search. Every passing day, it feels like another talented head coaching candidate has entered the market. That's terrific news for Mike Borgonzi.
There is always disagreement, but the fan base generally believes there are four head coaching candidates that were really appealing: Mike McCarthy, Robert Saleh, Chris Shula, and Jeff Hafley.
Titans' head coaching search is benefitting from influx of proven talent
Kevin Stefanski was fired, and for some, quickly shifted to the top of the candidate big board. That lasted until Tuesday morning when everyone found out that John Harbaugh had been fired by the Baltimore Ravens. Not to be outdone, the Miami Dolphins fired Mike McDaniel on Thursday morning and got people excited about his potential as a fun head coach (or an elite OC for a defensive-minded head coach).
All of this has made the coaching searches around the league exciting and dynamic, but the real winners are the Titans. With an influx of coaching talent like that, bolstering a solid (though unspectacular) group of candidates, increases the odds that the Titans land a better head coaching candidate than they could have hoped for a month ago.
While they might not be the best fit for every coach mentioned above, they should be the most broadly appealing franchise to prospective coaches because of where they are right now. Geographically, Nashville is great, but the point is where they are in their rebuilding process.
The Titans have done the hard part; now they have an exciting young quarterback and all of the draft capital and cap space that you could hope for, which should be music to the ears of most of these veteran coaches because nearly all of them come from places where cap space or quarterback play has been an issue.
As if that wasn't enough, there are rumors of coaches like Matt LaFleur and Sean McDermott potentially being on the market as well.
If that happened, the list of prospective coaching candidates would be littered with Super Bowl winners, proven offensive and defensive minds, exciting coordinator candidates who could wow a front office in an interview, and guys who have proven that they can establish winning cultures in locker rooms.
Flashback to a month ago, and Titans fans couldn't have hoped to have such a diverse and deep group of candidates, but luck was on their side this time. Now it is up to Borgonzi and company to capitalize on this pool of talent and kickstart this rebuild in 2026.