After a 1-5 start to the season, the Tennessee Titans fired head coach Brian Callahan on Monday. Senior offensive assistant Mike McCoy will take over as interim head coach, league sources said. Athletics.
Callahan, who was hired in 2024, went 4-19 as Tennessee’s head coach. The team has not yet announced an interim coach. Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi and president of football operations Chad Brinker met with Callahan Monday morning to inform him of his firing. Owner Amy Adams Strunk also contacted Callahan, league sources said. AthleticsThis is Dianna Russini.
– Tennessee Titans (@Titans) October 13, 2025
The 2025 season has been particularly difficult for Callahan. The Titans opened their sophomore season with a road loss to the Denver Broncos.
In the game, with the Broncos leading 13-12 in the third quarter, rookie receiver Elic Ayomanor made a 23-yard catch on first and 20. Ayomanor went down with an elbow in the field, which is enough to qualify as a catch. Yet Callahan did not contest the play because, as he erroneously stated in his postgame press conference, “one elbow doesn’t equal two feet.”
The Titans went two plays later and lost the game by eight points. Callahan later admitted that his “interpretation of the rule was wrong.”
In the Titans’ Week 3 blowout loss to the Indianapolis Colts, Tennessee had a chance to get within 10 points late in the second quarter, but was assessed a delay of game penalty before a 57-yard field goal attempt by Joey Slye, although both teams called timeouts before the play. After being backed up five yards, the 62-yard field goal Slye’s yards were blocked and the Colts instead scored three points on a field goal late in the half.
After that Week 3 loss, Callahan turned playing duties over to quarterbacks coach Bo Hardegree. In the Titans’ first game with Hardegree, Tennessee was shut out 26–0 by the Houston Texans, giving the Texans their first win of the season.
The offense, led by quarterback Cam Ward, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, has only scored more than 20 points once in a game — and that came in a wild Week 5 win over the Arizona Cardinals in which one of the touchdowns occurred when Ward threw an interception that was later fumbled and recovered by Tennessee for a touch.
Callahan’s last game ended in a 20-10 loss Sunday to the Las Vegas Raiders, in which the offense passed for just 225 yards.
Callahan got the job in 2024 after the Titans surprisingly parted ways with Mike Vrabel, who had led Tennessee to two division crowns and three playoff appearances, including a conference championship game in the 2019 season, during his six years as head coach. Vrabel was named the 2021 NFL Coach of the Year, but growing friction between him and Titans ownership led to his firing after the 2023 season. Tennessee was 7-10 and 6-11 in Vrabel’s final two seasons before Callahan took over.
Callahan came to the Titans after serving as offensive coordinator with the Cincinnati Bengals from 2019-2023, although head coach Zac Taylor was the play-caller.
During his time in Cincinnati, the Bengals ranked 18th in points scored per game and 21st in yards per game. Prior to his time in Cincinnati, Callahan was a quarterbacks coach for the Oakland Raiders and Detroit Lions, as well as an assistant in Denver.
Callahan is the son of Bill Callahan, longtime NFL assistant and former head coach of the Raiders and University of Nebraska. Bill was hired by his son in 2024 to coach the Titans offensive line.
McCoy joined the Titans in 2025 after three seasons as quarterbacks coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was head coach of the San Diego Chargers from 2013 to 2016 and also worked for the Arizona Cardinals, Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers.
This story will be updated.
