Titans’ front office news seems to have also leaked first real head coach short list names

Putting two and two together on this points to initial confirmations in coaching search

Easton Freeze — Tennessee Titans Beat Writer
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After one more game left to play this season, the Tennessee Titans will turn their full attention to finding the next head coach of their football team. The first batch of formal interview requests will be sent out in the next couple of days, and the Titans will begin their first round of interviews as early as Wednesday, Jan. 7.

My sourcing indicates that the first batch of interviewees will be around a dozen names, with the potential to grow as they progress through the process. It will be a mix of retreads and hot new options, with some intended to be interesting coordinator options or fact-finding interviews more so than strong contenders for the head gig.

So who will we see on the initial list? Well, you’ve surely seen countless short-list variations by now, with months’ worth of content produced between the Titans firing Brian Callahan and the end of the season. Most of it has been guesswork and agent agenda-driven, but now that we’re nearing the actual process, I’m here to tell you why this latest batch of reported names should probably be taken more seriously.

And it has everything to do with the Titans’ front office shake-up on Friday afternoon.

The head coach shortlist names that matter

If you missed what turned into a classic Friday-afternoon news dump, owner Amy Adams Strunk issued a statement about the front office returning to a traditional structure with president of football operations Chad Brinker and general manager Mike Borgonzi. There was a lot to unpack about why they had to do it, why it has made them look bad over the past year, and why it’s actually the wise move.

The driving force behind the decision was to make the head coaching vacancy more attractive. The Titans knew candidates would have plenty of questions about the structure, so they nipped this issue in the bud. But the nature of the press release was suspicious.

All in unison, we saw a slew of national NFL reporters, Nick Suss of the Tennessean, and the team’s social media accounts all release the news Friday afternoon. A statement from Adams Strunk of this nature isn’t one the team has any incentive to give to reporters ahead of time, and certainly not a random mix of select nationals and locals.

That’s just not how this business works. In fact, the teams themselves give these national guys very little in terms of official heads up on stuff. They get the info through the grapevine, often from agencies, and let the teams know they have it. There’s a song and dance to it all. And in this case, I don’t find it much of a stretch to assume the agents for these coaching candidates let it leak who was being talked to about the new structure and upcoming interview plans.

So what’s the point of explaining how the bacon is made in this corner of the news business? Because these national reports that were released in tandem on Friday all included coaching candidate names. And if we do some simple math, it’s not unreasonable to assume that these are at least largely the list of coaches whose agents were in contact with the Titans and subsequently spilled the details to reporters.

If these reporters just gave us the list of names whose agents heard from Tennessee on this restructure, then there’s your first fragments of a true coaching “short list”.

So let’s run down who was mentioned. Unsurprisingly, these aren’t new names. But confirmation is key.

Titans’ coaching candidates mentioned amid front office restructuring

Combining the names evoked in the latest Dianna Russini piece, the joint Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport piece, and the Albert Breer piece, we land on 11 names.

Former Packers and Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy is mentioned once, and Chiefs OC Matt Nagy is mentioned in all three. These two are the most popular retread options linked to Tennessee because of Brinker (Green Bay) and Borgonzi (Kansas City), and I can independently confirm that both coaches will be formally requested to interview for the Titans’ job.

After them, three men are mentioned in all three articles: Packers DC Jeff Hafley, 49ers DC Robert Saleh, and Rams DC Chris Shula. I feel comfortable saying these three are all locks to receive an interview request, too.

Chargers DC Jesse Minter, Broncos DC Vance Joseph, Colts DC Lou Anarumo, Commanders OC Kliff Kingsbury, Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak, and Jaguars DC Anthony Campanile were also mentioned as potential interviewees.

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