Titans officially have third head coach finalist stolen from them before their final sales pitch

The Dolphins become the third team to jump in front of the Titans for a head coach finalist.

Easton Freeze — Tennessee Titans Beat Writer
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The third head coach hire of the 2026 coaching carousel has been made, and the Titans are still out looking for their guy. The last truly inevitable of the initial hires is locked down in Miami, leaving seven jobs up for grabs as tension across the league rises to secure a chair before the music stops.

Dolphins hire Titans finalist Jeff Hafley before he reaches Nashville

Former Packers DC Jeff Hafley has agreed to accept the Miami Dolphins head coaching job as of Monday afternoon, per various national reports.

Miami hired former Packers executive Jon-Eric Sullivan, who very nearly became the Titans new GM in 2025 before ultimately losing to Mike Borgonzi. He found his GM seat in South Beach a year later, and hastily satisfied the Rooney Rule Monday morning before refusing to let his one and only finalist leave the building that afternoon.

In a league full of “buddy hires” it remains true that it pays to know powerful people. As Titans fans largely wait in fear for the news of Mike Borgonzi hiring his old colleague and friend Matt Nagy as their new head coach, the Dolphins just gleefully made a relationship hire of their own. And in doing so, became the third team to “steal” a finalist out from under Tennessee’s nose.

The Giants ultimately kept John Harbaugh in New Jersey long enough to agree to a marriage last week, as Tennessee’s plans to fly to Harbaugh’s Baltimore home the following day were dashed. Then over the weekend, the news of the first official “finalist” in the Titans’ process came to light in tandem with the news that he’d likely never reach them: they’d scheduled Kevin Stefanski for a second in-person interview the day after the Falcons planned on doing the same, with no intention of letting him leave their building.

Now, Hafley follows the same track. And the list of declared finalists is cut down from four to just two: former Chiefs OC Matt Nagy and 49ers DC Robert Saleh. Both men are in Nashville on Monday for their final interviews, with an offer widely expected to be made to one of them eventually. Nagy began with dinner on Sunday night and in-person meetings first on Monday, followed by Saleh later in the afternoon.

The Bills shocking the NFL world by firing Sean McDermott Monday morning left many wondering if the Titans would pivot and potentially consider adding him to their pool to consider, but it’s unclear how his timeline would mesh with theirs and whether he would even be interested in jumping right back in with the Titans in the first place. So it feels unlikely as of Monday afternoon, but we will see.

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