Brian Callahan’s two moments of coaching malpractice that should leave Titans fans with serious questions after Week 1 loss

Brian Callahan is in hot water already. Or at least, that’s what Tennessee Titans fans would tell you should absolutely be the case today. You know it’s bad when you’re already seeing sarcastic accusations of war crimes on social media before halftime.

For my money, there are two moments in this game that deserve serious scrutiny. Let’s talk about them.

Titans Should Have Led At Half

First was the Titans final offensive sequence before halftime. The Broncos pinned Tennessee down at their own 7 yard line, with 47 seconds on the clock. They could have chosen to go to halftime up 6-3, but instead choose to get aggressive. That’s how Callahan explained it at the postgame podium: he was trying to get aggressive to get the ball out from under their own goalpost. He alluded to there being routes down the field they were hoping to hit, but the protection didn’t hold up well enough for Ward to do anything but throw incomplete to the flat twice. Then on third down from the seven yard line, he’s nearly sacked for a safety.

The Titans awkwardly punted out from the very back of the endzone, and the Broncos quickly scored the first touchdown of the game. It was a completely avoidable score. In fact, the worst case scenario, as Callahan agreed to it being at the podium. From my hindsight armchair, I do not understand this decision making at all. Why choose this time, of all the times, to be aggressive? It bit them badly, and based on how he responded to our line of questioning in the presser, I’d wager he’s painfully aware of it.

The Elic Ayomanor Catch Callahan Didn’t Challenge

The other moment that deserves real scrutiny is choosing not to challenge a seriously impressive Elic Ayomanor catch that was ruled out of bounds. It was the third quarter, and a JC Latham holding call had them facing 1st and 20. Cam Ward aired the ball out for Ayomanor, who caught what would have been a chunk play had be been ruled in bounds. He fell on the sideline, and upon replay, clearly got an elbow down before touching out of bounds. Here’s what Callahan said about choosing to keep the challenge flag in his pocket:

“Yeah, you’ve got to get a foot in-bounds too. Which, we didn’t have a clean look at whether his foot was down as well. An elbow doesn’t equal two feet, so his foot would have had to come down as well. We didn’t have a clean look, so, the call from upstairs was that it wasn’t worth challenging.”

Unless Brian Callahan knows something about the NFL rulebook that I don’t, this is incorrect. Per the official rulebook on the NFL’s football operations site, Section 1, Article 3 on the definition of a completed pass says it’s a catch if the receiver “touches the ground inbounds with both his feet or with any part of his body other than his hands.”

I won’t pretend that the definition of a completed pass hasn’t been muddled in recent NFL history, or that I’m personally rock-solid on the rule book. But this seems clear to me. And if Callahan (or the person he trusts to know this upstairs) simply has this wrong, it is a really painful look. He will undoubtedly be asked about it further this week.

The Bottom Line

I wrote a lengthy piece on Callahan’s job security in August, which you can read right here. Everything in it remains true, and it’s (in my opinion) the roadmap to whether he and his staff get to stay in Tennessee with Cam Ward beyond this season. But moments like these, the ones we have no choice but to focus on after the games, are what will be his early undoing if they persist.

The Titans really, really do not want to break continuity for Cam Ward early in his career. In my estimation, there are only two ways that Callahan can get himself fired this year: demonstrate decision-making incompetence, or lose practically all of the games. Which, losing all of the games almost certainly means he was either incompetent as a decision-maker or incompetent in developing Cam Ward. So really, it’s just one way to get fired: obvious coaching incompetence. failing to win a bunch of games, failing to be in the playoff race, failing to turn this sloppy Titans ship all the way around in a single offseason: none of that will do it.

But doing the kinds of things that become singular headlines on Monday? Demonstrating you can’t manage a clock, or that you don’t know when to (or not to) be aggressive, or that you don’t know the rules? That will do it if it keeps up. If there are many more Sundays where the reality, or frankly, even just the perception is that Callahan was an incompetent decision-maker… then Cam Ward’s continuity will likely end early.

That’s the reality in the NFL. Now let me bring the temperature down a good bit before finishing here: it was one week. If I had a nickel for every NFL game I ever watched where the armchair, hindsight, broadcast-view take was that the proven head coach in the game got something dreadfully wrong, I would be drowning in nickels. We see this all the time from good and bad coaches alike. Even the best all seem to have their blind spots that nobody can explain. And a poor Week 1 showing for Brian Callahan far from stamps his pink slip, no matter how badly fans might wish it did in the foggy rage of Sunday night.

Week 1 is weird. And there is a reason that Overreaction Monday after the first weekend of the season is practically a national holiday in the media: everybody overreacts! So I will not be overreacting to an objectively poor day from the head coach of this team. If it keeps up and we’re talking about poor months? Well, refer to the paragraphs above. But for now, I will be anxiously waiting to see if he and this team can start digging themselves out of this sloppy hole they’ve dug.