Brian Callahan’s Last Stand? The truth about what has to happen in Week 4 for the Titans, coaching staff to avoid an early firing

The Tennessee Titans are headed to face the Houston Texans in Owner Amy Adams Strunk’s hometown in Week 4, which always carries slightly higher stakes no matter what. The Titans as a franchise and their ownership group have history with Houston that always make this win a bit sweeter, or the loss a sharper sting. But through three weeks of the 2025 season, the stakes feel like they’ve been dialed up to a million. The Titans are 0-3, and Brian Callahan has been a big storyline in two of three games for all the wrong reasons. Situational management has been extremely disappointing, penalties have been rampant, tackling has been poor, and Cam Ward leads the league in sacks taken. Those are just the highlights of the list of problems for this team, on top of the most important thing of course: no wins.

Winning fixes everything in the NFL. It rights just about any wrong. And even Callahan’s biggest detractors would agree, if the Titans manage a win over Houston this Sunday, his job will be perfectly safe for another week. But if they lose, could the Titans be the first team with a head coaching vacancy this year?

What Has To Happen For Callahan To Meet An Early End

I wrote a preseason article all about Brian Callahan’s leash as he embarked upon his second season as the Titans head coach. A lot of background work and privileged conversations went into that piece, which you can read in it’s entirety here. But let me bring back a portion of what I wrote to revisit ahead of this game:

“Cam (Ward) is playing his cards wisely, and the bottom line here is that this front office is trying to do the same. Responsible organizations with good foresight know the the time to make a change as fundamental to your structure as the coaching staff—when in the midst of trying to hit big on a young QB—is either right away, or a couple years down the road when he’s gotten his feet under him. If they had any significant doubt about Callahan’s ability to figure this thing out, they should have sent him packing in January. They decided they didn’t, and now they’re going to try to be patient enough to not consider that again until Cam can at least get a year or two under his belt. Now you just have to keep everybody in line through the ups and downs of a rocky season, sticking to the plan. That can be easier said than done in the NFL, but this leadership group seems awfully confident they can pull it off.”

Oh how quickly things can change. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face! Sticking to a plan of patience and discipline in the face of losing, even when the losing was expected, is really hard. And when the coaching staff seems to have regressed in key areas, it can make even the most dedicated to continuity second-guess the best thing for the future of the team.

It wasn’t unpopular to wonder aloud if Callahan would get the boot after an ugly Week 3 loss to the Colts. So if they drop to 0-4 against the Texans, losing in Amy Adams Strunk’s hometown, this has to be it right? At the risk of looking really stupid in a couple of days, I’m here to tell you no. This isn’t a win or go home game for the Callahan regime.

Believe it or not, the mindset of ownership and this executive leadership group remains largely the same as what it was before the games began: continuity is king. They still really do not want to fire Brian Callahan. And they really, really do not want to fire him now in-season. They’ll do it if they feel they have no choice, and that’s where coaching management this weekend is critical. If Brian Callahan becomes the story in three of the Titans first four games, then anything is on the table come Monday morning.

But if the Titans handle situational football well, the team puts up a decent fight against a stout Texans defense and doesn’t get blanked, then there isn’t going to be any coaching change news on Monday morning. The driving narrative might shake out that way anyways, as plenty of fans will see an 0-4 record and demand heads roll no matter what. But the people who actually make these decisions aren’t in a rush to go firing anybody yet unless more disasters take place. They spent all summer saying this season isn’t really about wins and losses, and they meant it.