Titans Head Coach Search Notebook: Who is really calling the shots vs. who is making the final decision

Everything I think, I feel, and I know about the Titans’ head coach search that’s now underway.

Easton Freeze — Tennessee Titans Beat Writer
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It’s time to find a new head coach for the Tennessee Titans!

The regular season is over, and the Titans have already begun acting on the months of research they’ve poured into finding the next man to lead Cam Ward & Co. in 2026. With a big January (and February?) of interviewing ahead of us, I want to empty my notebook on what to know before we go. Here it is:

Inside Interviewee Information

As I reported here over the weekend, two names you will officially be seeing get at least an initial interview are Chiefs OC Matt Nagy and former Cowboys Head Coach Mike McCarthy. A trio of hot DC names I feel confident will also be interviewed are 49ers DC Robert Saleh, Rams DC Chris Shula, and Packers DC Jeff Hafley. At the time writing this, we already have confirmations from national sources on Colts DC Lou Anarumo, Broncos DC Vance Joseph, and Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo being requested too. Click here for the rest of the list of candidates I expect them to pull from with some background on each, and keep an eye out at atozsports.com for our official interview tracker.

As for the total number of interviewees, my sources say roughly a dozen men comprise the initial list. That has the potential to grow by a couple names as they get into the process. If they do their first handful and aren’t inspired, for example, they’ll broaden their search with a couple more invites. I’m told the list of invites doesn’t really contain any wildcard names either, the meaning of which is up to interpretation. I’d say that’s bad news for the dozens of Gruden bros out there. Sorry, fellas.

But the Titans will cast a wide enough net to include a handful of names you wouldn’t expect to be particularly strong candidates for the head coach gig. That’s by design, as they have at least a couple names on their list who will make for worthy interviews from a fact-finding and potential coordinator standpoint. I wrote about a pair of names here who could be head coach interviews-turned-coordinator hires (something the Titans did successfully in recent history).

The Titans released a statement from Amy Adams Strunk the Friday of Week 18, explaining the return to a more traditional front office structure between GM Mike Borgonzi and President of Football Operations Chad Brinker. There was a lot to unpack about what that really means and why it makes the Titans look bad in the past year which you can read about here. But the primary driver of the change was the fact that it makes the head coach opening more attractive. Candidates were sure to have many questions about the structure, who exactly they answer to, how many bosses they have between them and ownership, etc. This shift was designed to nip that in the bud.

As for functional changes, it doesn’t actually impact much. Mike Borgonzi will still literally be doing the same things he has been doing all year managing the 53-man roster, a power that was technically “allowed” by Brinker but is now explicitly enumerated in his contract. And as Strunk declared in her statement, Borgonzi will be running the head coach search. What impact does that have on the actual process? Again, not much. This will be a joint-venture tackled by Borgonzi and Brinker at the top of the pyramid, as they have worked hand-in-hand on many things since last Winter. Borgonzi has been publicly blessed with “final say” by Strunk, but we all know that the real final say belongs to the owner herself. Borgonzi, Brinker, and everybody else in that interview room will have to sell her on whoever their favorite option is.

Speaking of the people in the room, who will that be? When the Titans conduct their first round of around a dozen virtual interviews, the search committee will be comprised of GM Mike Borgonzi, President of Football Ops Chad Brinker, Asst. GM Dave Ziegler, VP/Football Advisor Reggie McKenzie, and VP of Player Personnel Dan Saganey. This is the “five pack” of football executives that has been rolling as a crew throughout the free agent, draft, and pro personnel cycles of the year in this first season with Borgonzi.

Notably absent from this list is Titans President and CEO Burke Nihill and Chief of Staff Bryce Wasserman. Nihill is Brinker’s counterpart on the business side of the operation, and while it’s not uncommon to see him involved in massive organizational decisions such as this regardless of which “side” of the building they’re happening on, my understanding is that he won’t be involved in at least the majority of this process. Wasserman, notably the son-in-law of Amy Adams Strunk, has been involved in this process in the past. But I’m told he won’t be this time around.

Amy Adams Strunk won’t be involved in the initial interviews, but once round two of in-person talks begin after the January 19th legal start date, she will get to know the candidates and be the final step in the approval process.

What will matter in the end

The Titans have been publicly adamant that they aren’t looking for any one archetype of coach in particular. This isn’t an intentional pivot from young to old, or offense to defense, or schemer to CEO, or friendly to gruff. They want to cast a wide net and find the best possible man for the job, as just about every search is sold to the public with classic buzzy phrasing.

What I know they value significantly this time around and will weight heavily in their final decision is experience. They believe coaches with prior head coaching experience and/or years of play calling experience are sound bets, and arguably what this relatively blank-slate Titans team badly needs. It’s not the be-all-end-all to their search, so don’t go crossing younger candidates off your short list yet. If somebody blows them away as the right man for the job, they’ll hire him. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become a tiebreaker in the final round of interviews.

Another thing the Titans are adamant about both publicly and privately: they are not here to hire buddies. Everybody and their brother has been connecting Matt Nagy and Mike McCarthy to the Titans since the moment Brian Callahan was dismissed for this very reason. Brinker and Borgonzi have history with them. And they’ll get interviews, and probably second interviews, and be very serious candidates if I had to guess. But the Titans put their money where their mouth is last winter when they ended up passing over Packers executive Jon-Eric Sullivan for the GM job. He and Brinker have more than just a cordial working relationship, and on a personal level it’s impossible for there not to always be a draw to the people you know and like. but the decision was made the he wasn’t what was best for the Tennessee Titans organization; Mike Borgonzi was.

This time around, they’re determined to make that same kind of objective decision. It’s come out recently just how close Borgonzi is with Matt Nagy, but he’s going to have to set that aside in the interview room. Chad Brinker doesn’t have any prior experience with Nagy that I’m aware of, besides watching his Packers whip up on him when he was the head coach of the Bears. He’ll have to set that aside too. The same goes for each executive in that room, who all have their own unique preconceived notions of every coach they’ll interview.

One final note is acknowledging the sales job the Titans will have to do to ownership and to the public for whoever they choose. Amy Adams Strunk has been taken behind the woodshed in the public eye for years at this point, largely by her own doing. She has felt the strain of that. Search “Nagy Titans” on X and you can get a pretty clear picture of how that kind of hire would be received. It would be an uphill battle with fans, that’s for sure. So while I don’t think the Titans’ search committee will be making a pick to appease fans (as they shouldn’t), I do think the way it’s expected to read publicly will matter some. Particularly to ownership.

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