Chad Brinker kept going back to one central theme while explaining why the Titans became the first team to fire a coach in this 2025 season.
“We just felt like this was the right time to make a change,” Tennessee’s president of football operations said Monday after axing Brian Callahan. “We were looking for growth in this football team and that’s what this is about right now, is we’re not seeing enough growth from this football team. We’re 1-5, and we got to be better in this.”
As Brinker kept hammering home this point, though, some wondered why he — and not owner Amy Adams Strunk — delivered this message and answered questions about the franchise-altering move.
And it made for a rather awkward scene.
Brinker, who did most of the talking while sitting to the right of general manager Mike Borgonzi, said the owner was “at her home.”
“I’m here representing her,” Brinker said.
For any Titans fan hoping for grand insights into the team’s plan or why Adams Strunk has fired her second coach in the last three years, after previously dismissing Mike Vrabel following the 2023 campaign, they instead have to hope the team truly knows what “growth” is.
Brinker made it clear the team felt that the Titans, and specifically No. 1 pick quarterback Cam Ward, had not been showing signs of progress.
The team went 3-14 last year and began this season 1-5 following Sunday’s listless 20-10 loss to the Raiders despite an uplifting upset of the Cardinals the previous week.
Ward had an awful day Sunday, turning the ball over three times, and Callahan singled him out after the game in what proved to be an ominous sign.
“I am incredibly discouraged by the outcome,” Callahan said Sunday. “We felt good coming into the game. To not be able to perform well on offense and not be able to score any points and then lose the game is disappointing. And we all gotta be better, Cam’s a part of that too, Cam’s gotta play better football as well. We gotta coach better, we gotta play better, all those things.
“It’s not all just him, but he is a part of it, and we’d like to be able to start seeing some more good football being played and we got to do a better job.”
Callahan got the boot after just 23 games leading the franchise, and the team will now turn to ex-Chargers coach Mike McCoy, whose background is on the offensive side.
For McCoy to show he’s worthy of sticking, he’ll have to get Ward to play like a top pick.
Ward has thrown for just 1,101 passing yards, three touchdowns and four interceptions.
“That’s a big part of this, as well. We drafted Cam Ward first overall,” Brinker said. “We need to see him grow as a football player as well, so all of that is a factor.”
If McCoy is just a placeholder, though, the Titans could be in the market for a coach at a time when Adams Skunk has not shown patience.
She moved on from Vrabel after back-to-back losing seasons, axed general manager Ran Carthon after two seasons and then moved on from Callahan after 23 games.
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Coaches usually prefer spots where they are afforded time to build a program, but that hasn’t been the operating standard with the Titans.
“This job will be attractive,” Brinker said. “I have no doubt about that.”
It all comes back to who the franchise sees as the one to lead that growth.
“I think there’s growth opportunities throughout the roster, whether that’s offense, defense, special teams. We need to see more from our players, from our coaches and we got to get better,” Brinker said. “There’s a standard we’re trying to uphold here moving forward and we’re just not meeting that standard.”