By TERESA M. WALKER AP Pro Football Writer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Titans fired Brian Callahan on Monday after a 1-5 start to his second season, making him the first NFL head coach ousted this season.
Chad Brinker, the Titans’ president of football operations, said team officials had extended conversations with controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk and general manager Mike Borgonzi before meeting with Callahan on Monday morning to tell him that Tennessee was making a change.
“While we are committed to a patient and strategic plan to build a sustainable, winning football program, we have not demonstrated sufficient growth,” Brinker said in a statement. “Our players, fans, and community deserve a football team that achieves a standard we are not currently meeting, and we are committed to making the hard decisions necessary to reach and maintain that standard.”
The Titans did not immediately say who would be interim coach. They host former Tennessee coach Mike Vrabel and his New England Patriots (4-2) on Sunday.
Callahan went 4-19, which featured a 10-game skid.
He becomes just the second coach fired during the season by this franchise since relocating to Tennessee in 1997, joining Ken Whisenhunt. Whisenhunt had a 3-20 record when fired in November 2015, with a stint that also included a 10-game skid to end the 2014 season.
The Titans had said they wanted to see improvement this season with Callahan going into his second season as a first-time head coach and with a rookie quarterback in Cam Ward. Yet Callahan had to hand off play-calling duties after dropping to 0-3 and the offense struggling.
Even the change in play-caller didn’t help.
The Titans have scored only 83 points and are averaging 3.94 yards per play. Only the 2019 Jets, the 2018 Bills in Josh Allen’s rookie year, the 2009 Browns, the 2009 Raiders in JaMarcus Russell’s last season and the 2007 49ers have scored fewer than 84 points and 4 yards per play through six games in the past 20 seasons.
Of the 241 NFL coaches who have coached at least 20 games or more since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, Callahan ranks 237th with a .174 winning percentage. The only coaches with worse winning percentages were Jim Ringo (.130), Marty Mornhinweg (.156), Chris Palmer (.156) and Rod Dowhower (.172).
The Titans knew that this would be a rebuilding year, and Brinker said at the start of training camp that improvement was the one sign they were looking for. They have played at least seven rookies in each game this season, led by Ward, the No. 1 draft pick.
Callahan was hired in January 2024 for his work with quarterbacks including Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, also a No. 1 pick, in 2020.
But Ward is the most-sacked quarterback in the NFL, with 25 already, including a pair of games with six sacks each, following a 20-10 loss to the Raiders.
This marks the fourth time in five years that a team that picked a quarterback with the No. 1 selection fired the coach during the season.
Callahan joins Matt Eberflus (Chicago, 2024), Frank Reich (Carolina, 2023) and Urban Meyer (Jaguars, 2021) in that group. Hue Jackson also was fired by Cleveland in 2018 and former Titans coach Jeff Fisher by the Rams in 2016 in the same situation.
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