Someone in the organization tells us how they feel about Brian Callahan
It’s been a busy day around here. It started this morning with the news that the Tennessee Titans had fired general manager Ran Carthon and were officially retaining head coach Brian Callahan. That produced a lot of fallout, including a reaction from Deion Sanders. Then there was the news that four more people in the front office were being let go.
This afternoon Jim Wyatt posted an interview with Chad Brinker who gave us some insight into the job that Callahan did in his first season with the Titans:
“He was a first-time head coach, and a first-time play caller,” Brinker said of Callahan. “There are some challenges as a first-time head coach, like building a culture, assessing current and future talent, establishing trust and communication, building a high-level staff, creating an alignment from the coaching to the front office to ownership. On top of that, he was a first-time play caller and first-time head coach. Brian was one of the hottest candidates last year on the market, and we believe in Brian, and we want to give him the opportunity to grow into the head coach that we think he can be. He knows, and we’ve talked about it, that it wasn’t good enough this year. And I think Brian is really self-reflective in that regard, and he understands that he has to be better, and his staff has to be better. And, quite frankly, we all have to be better, including me. We want to give Brian that opportunity to continue to grow. It just takes time to build a program.”
That seems like a pretty fair assessment. Any time a team goes 3-14 there are plenty of things that are going to need to be improved, but I didn’t see anything from Callahan this season that was a fireable offense. It makes sense that he would get another season to prove that he can grow into the role of being an NFL head coach.
With all of that being said, Callahan better hope they get off to a hot start this season because we have seen over the last few years that Amy Adams Strunk has a quick trigger. Also, a piece of advice for Cally, if AAs offers you a contract extension, turn it down. That is the kiss of death around here.