Titans leadership reveals plan for identifying most important QB trait in the 2025 NFL Draft at the Senior Bowl
Brian Callahan and Mike Borgonzi shared the key to identifying a good ‘nervous system’
The Tennessee Titans have hit the road in search of the players that will turn their franchise around, with none more important than their next quarterback.
In an exclusive interview with A to Z Sports, Head Coach Brian Callahan spoke about the most important trait he’s looking for in his next signal caller: a strong “nervous system”.
When Callahan breaks it down, it makes complete sense. And for anybody who has watched the Titans lately, it’s easy to see that they’ve not had a strong nervous system under center since Ryan Tannehill was in his groove.
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But how does one actually test for a strong nervous system? Is it something you can only see on tape, in authentic moments of stress? Or can you simulate it?
I asked Brian Callahan and Titans new GM about how they approach this in the pre-draft process at the Senior Bowl. Their answers gave some insight into how they’ll identify their next QB.
“There's ways you can do your best” Callahan said. “If there was a clear-cut way, we'd probably have a lot more hits on quarterbacks than not.”
“It is challenging. There's no perfect science to it. You do your best given what you know about the person and the player, and their intelligence and their makeup. That's why you've got to really dig hard on these guys, their personalities, the people that are around them. Then you've got to test them as best you can. You try to put them under some duress. It's manufactured, obviously, but you just try to see how they respond to some things. But it's not a perfect science.”
Mike Borgonzi made it clear that nothing beats seeing them operate in tough situations on tape. “You can see some of the poise on film” he said. “Critical situations, third downs, red zone players. Those are the things you're looking for when the game's on the line.” But that’s not all there is to the process.
“What do they do in critical moments of the game? And then a lot of it is researching with the scouts and talking to people inside the building and how they deal with adverse situations throughout the week, throughout the game. That's an important part of the process. Making plays in critical times of the game, especially for that position, is very important.”
But is a strong nervous system something you can develop? Or is it an innate trait a guy either has or doesn’t?
There’s certainly some good old fashioned “it factor” to finding a guy who is wired in an ideal way. Borgonzi also referred back to his experience with perhaps the greatest “nervous system” QB of all time: Patrick Mahomes.
“Some guys have it. They're just cool, calm, under pressure. That's how Pat was in Kansas City. I've had a good view of that for a while. And so has Brian with Joe. But those are the things you look for. It's exactly right. It's handling those critical moments, especially for that position.”
The bottom line: finding a guy who rises in the biggest moments is what’s most important to the Titans, and it may also be the hardest thing to find. If they decide one of the QBs in this class possesses that ability, they’re liable to take him high. If not… happy hunting on the open market.
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