By Joe Rexrode, Paul Dehner Jr. and Mark Puleo
The Tennessee Titans are finalizing a deal to hire Brian Callahan as their next coach, a team source told The Athletic. Callahan joins the Titans after spending the last five years as the Cincinnati Bengals' offensive coordinator.
Callahan was in Nashville for a second interview on Monday and the Titans, viewing him as their top coaching target, made sure to work toward an agreement before his departure.
Callahan joined Zac Taylor in Cincinnati and helped rebuild the Bengals from a basement team to a team that enjoyed three straight winning seasons and reached Super Bowl LVI.
The Titans job was vacant after Mike Vrabel was fired on Jan. 9 after six seasons with the team. Vrabel posted a 42-24 record during his tenure, but the team slipped to 6-11 in 2023.
What Tennessee gets in Callahan
Callahan has the pedigree of an offensive and quarterback guru. He spent his life around the game, growing up in the shadow of his father, former NFL coach Bill Callahan, but really grew up in the shadow of Peyton Manning. As an up-and-coming offensive assistant in Denver, he really learned to understand the position at the highest level. He then worked with Matthew Stafford, Derek Carr and finally the groom Joe Burrow. But what will set Callahan apart are the lessons he instilled that helped blossom the building culture that transformed the Bengals' franchise.
He was Taylor's right-hand man in every decision over the last five years of Cincinnati's development, from the punch line to back-to-back AFC championship games. He took full control of shaping an offense that thrived around Burrow. In many ways, he brings a style that is the opposite of Vrabel, as he tends to have a lighter, player-friendly offseason and prefers to focus heavily on the passing game. However, his style with Taylor was not rigid and often changed from year to year and even month to month in recent years. — Paul Dehner Jr., Bengals beat writer
The Titans went the right way for Will Levis
It made sense for the Titans to cast a wide net and not limit their search to offensive line coaches, because you never know where an interview might lead, but it always made the most sense to land on one. This is an OC-obsessed league right now, especially when it comes to someone with a connection between Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay, and Taylor comes from that tribe – with some of Callahan's early NFL experience in Denver under Gary, an early disciple the west coast, Kubiak were collected.
While Callahan didn't see action in Cincinnati, he obviously worked closely with Burrow and found success for Jake Browning this season. He was quarterbacks coach in previous stints in Oakland and Detroit, and what Will Levis needs now is a stable partner for his development. Hiring an offensive line coach means the guy who lays the foundation for everything Levis does can't be hired by another team. – Joe Rexrode, Titans beat writer
Another key offensive personnel hire now appears to be a lock
The Titans had one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL last season, and while it's more about personnel than coaching, Nashville is in dire need of a top offensive coach. It stands to reason that Callahan would enlist his father for this purpose.
Callahan has been Cleveland's offensive line coach for the past four seasons and has extensive experience in that position as well as head coaching stints with the Oakland Raiders and Nebraska Cornhuskers. Callahan helped lay the foundation for Wisconsin's offensive dominance under Barry Alvarez in 1990, which continued decades after his departure. As for the offensive coordinator, two obvious names are: Carolina Panthers OC Thomas Brown – who interviewed for the job with the Titans – and Kentucky Wildcats OC Liam Coen, who coached Levis in 2021. – Rexrode
Required reading
(Photo: Dylan Buell/Getty Images)