6 Brian Callahan replacements for the Titans to maximize Cam Ward

The Tennessee Titans made the questionable but entirely predictable decision to fire head coach Brian Callahan on Monday. He finishes his brief Titans tenure with an unbecoming record of 4-19, going 1-5 this season. NFL Network's Ian Rapoport broke the news:

This feels like a dramatic overreaction to the inevitable. We knew the Titans were going to struggle this season. Cam Ward is a rookie quarterback. The list of rookie quarterbacks who blossom into winning stars in year one is awfully short. Jayden Daniels was a fluke, not the standard-bearer. The offensive personnel around Ward doesn't help. Tennessee's O-line couldn't stop a molasses leak and the wide receiver room might be the NFL's worst. Of course this team is 1-5.

That said, the frustrations are understandable. Callahan was hired for his brilliant work with Joe Burrow in Cincinnati, where he pulled the strings for the NFL's most explosive offense. As the head honcho in Nashville, Callahan's Titans consistently ranked among the worst offensive teams in the league. Again, that is really on the personnel — the front office! — but alas, Callahan was the easy scapegoat for a notoriously impatient front office. Titans officials are probably second-guessing that decision to fire Mike Vrabel right about now.

As for what's next, the Titans should have a single goal in mind: find a coach who can shepherd Cam Ward to greatness and establish winning habits under less-than-ideal circumstances. Here are a few potential solutions to Tennessee's new quagmire.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers OC Josh Grizzard

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator-to-head coach pipeline is flowing at capacity. Dave Canales took the Carolina job in 2024 and has done a fine job. This past summer, Liam Coen took the Jacksonville job. Lo and behold, the Jags are 4-2 and feel like a real threat to win their division. Josh Grizzard is new to the whole coordinating thing, but in a shocking twist... the Bucs' offense keeps on keeping on.

Baker Mayfield has essentially earned two straight coordinators a raise and an elevated rank, so why not make it three. And the track record of success, while brief, and so far solid. Canales is performing well above his means with the Panthers. Ditto for Coen. Grizzard spent seven years as a quality control coach and passing game coordinator in Miami, before fulfilling the same duties under Coen in 2024. Now, with Tampa on a rocket-like ascent to the top of the NFC standings, you can bet the 35-year-old — an ex-quarterback and Yale graduate — will get looks. He feels like a natural option to shepherd Cam Ward into the future.

Almost every team with a young quarterback attempts to hire the offensive wiz-kid. Sometimes it works out like Sean McVay in Los Angeles. Other times it works out like Brian Callahan in Tennessee. It's not a foolproof strategy, but Grizzard has been learning from the right folks in Tampa and his quarterback specialty should help him connect to Ward, which is priority No. 1 as the Titans attempt to chart a path forward.

Los Angeles Rams OC Mike LaFleur

Mike LaFleur, 38, comes from the Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay coaching tree, which is basically catnip for teams looking to hire a bright young coordinator to develop their young quarterback. He also happens to be the younger brother of Packers head coach Matt LaFleur. Nepotism is not always the best business strategy, but you can be sure LaFleur's last name carries weight in NFL circles — deservedly or not.

He has spent the last few years as McVay's right-hand man and the nominal offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams. We know McVay is calling plays in L.A., but LaFleur deserves his share of credit for coaching a team that consistently outperforms expectations on that side of the football, regardless of personnel loss or financial complications in the front office.

It helps to have folks like Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua to guide your offense, of course, but LaFleur has made his bones as a high-profile coordinator and his youth, if all works out, is a very attractive trait. It means he could coach Ward for a long, long time in Nashville. The Shanahan-McVay coaching tree is vast, spanning a not-insignificant portion of the NFL at this point. It's a smart bet, and one the Titans are sure to consider.

Buffalo Bills OC Joe Brady

Please stop me if you're heard this before. Joe Brady is a young, upstart offensive coordinator, known for his partnership with an emerging MVP candidate at the quarterback position. This was the playbook Tennessee ran with Callahan, with mixed results. But there's something a little different about the work Brady did with Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, in part because Cam Ward's skill set and developmental arc probably resemble Josh Allen more than Joe Burrow.

Brady has served as Buffalo's full-time offensive coordinator since 2024, with an interim stint in 2023. Unlike LaFleur, who is basically an understudy to Sean McVay in Los Angeles, Brady is fully in charge of the Bills' offensive playcalling. Sean McDermott is a great coach — a great defensive coach, who has done an excellent job of divvying up responsibilities among is staff.

Before his coordinator stint, Brady was the Bills' quarterbacks coach in 2022-23, serving as a major influence at a key inflection point of Allen's career. Allen was always a stupendous talent, but he entered the NFL as more of a concept than a fully realized product. He struggled with turnovers. He bit off more than he could chew on a lot of possessions. Brady helped Allen play to his strengths while mitigating unforced errors, which led to Allen's MVP coronation a year ago.

In terms of "upside," however you wish to ascribe such a word to a coach, and résumé, Brady is as good as it gets. He feels like a strong candidate here, and many will argue he is the best candidate.

Washington Commanders OC Kliff Kingsbury

Kliff Kingsbury was the head coach in Arizona for four years from 2019-22. He made the playoffs once and finished with a combined record of 28-37, winning just four games in his final campaign. It was an uneven and ultimately unsuccessful stint with the Cardinals, which he followed by leaving the NFL entirely to serve as an offensive analyst at USC for a year.

Kingsbury was the head coach at Texas Tech for six years before taking the Cardinals job. He made the rare and notoriously risky leap straight from college to the NFL. Why? You know why. He was a young, offense-first coach, known for innovative playcalling and quarterback development. Arizona wanted the right guy to mentor Kyler Murray. It's the same recipe we've cited several times in this article already.

In many ways, Klingsbury is sort of the original Grizzard or LeFleur or Brady. Only now he has coaching experience — both at the college and NFL level — and he's currently in the second year of an extremely successful stint as Washington Commanders offensive coordinator, which saw him shepherd Jayden Daniels through a genuinely historic rookie season.

Kingsbury has probably learned quite a bit since his last tenure as an NFL head coach. Sometimes it takes a couple tries, trial and error, to get it right. Kingsbury was a popular name in the head coaching carousel this past summer and his name is sure to pop up against for 2026. Of all the openings, he will struggle to find a better starting point than Cam Ward. This is a clear match.

Miami Dolphins HC Mike McDaniel

Mike McDaniel is midway through his fourth season as Miami Dolphins head coach. He's 29-28 overall, but 1-5 to start the current campaign. It's clear things are falling apart in Miami. We needn't beat around the bush. McDaniel has lost the locker room. A lot of the craziness that has befallen the Dolphins is beyond McDaniel's control, but his reputation has taken a massive hit these past couple years. Not long ago, Miami felt like a budding contender and McDaniel was the hottest name is coaching. Now he's potentially weeks, even days away from getting the pink slip.

There's a good chance McDaniel's next gig is as an offensive coordinator, which probably fits his personality and skill set. But what if the Titans come knocking? For all the negativity surrounding the Dolphins right now, McDaniel's scheme is among the most creative and kinetic in the NFL. He made Tua Tagovailoa, a severely limited quarterback, into a top-10 MVP candidate. Just imagine what he can do with Cam Ward, whose arm talent and improv skills are never in doubt.

The Titans lack the foundation, personnel-wise, that McDaniel inherited in Miami, but Ward is an excellent starting point. The Dolphins' offense is all about timing — getting the football out quickly, delivering it to receivers in open space and with room to run. Put a few more competent pass-catchers around Ward, and McDaniel has the capacity to make life much easier on the young quarterback. And, lest we forget, the vibes in Miami were immaculate before Tagovailoa's concussions last season, which were the beginning of this sharp and sudden downward spiral. It's not like McDaniel can't bring a locker room together and elevate the energy around an organization.

Another product of the Shanahan coaching tree in Washington, Atlanta and San Francisco, McDaniel has all the pedigree you could want when hand-picking Ward's next head coach. He's also 42, still quite young, meaning he'd get (hopefully) a long runway in Tennessee, assuming all goes well. The broader NFL fandom is checked out on McDaniel right now, but this would be an excellent hire.

Kansas City Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo

A curveball to round things out. Common logic tells us the Titans should pursue the hot-shot offensive whiz kid and figure out the rest later, but there is an equally viable path that involves hiring a qualified defensive coach who can then bring in a quality offensive coordinator to work hand-in-hand with Ward. There is not a more accomplished defensive mind than Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo.

This is, admittedly, a pipe dream. It's hard to imagine Spagnuolo, 65, leaving his cushy gig with the Kansas City Chiefs, where he has won three Super Bowls and a gazillion AFC championships. Spags is essentially the only coordinator in modern history to generate legitimate Hall of Fame buzz. His creative blitz packages are the stuff of legend, and the Chiefs' defense often does not get the credit it deserves for this prolonged stretch of dominance. The only reason Kansas City is 3-3 and not 0-6 is because the defense has showed up weekly this season.

Spagnuolo is an older coach, and his last stint as a head coach — all the way back in 2009-11, when he went 10-38 as the leader of the St. Louis Rams — did not exactly inspire confidence. There's a reason he has been a coordinator ever since. You want him on the sidelines, focused entirely on outsmarting the opponent's offense.

But coaches can evolve, and Spags has been around more winning than any other coordinator in recent history. He's a four-time champ, winning thrice with the Chiefs, and once as the Giants' coordinator back in 2007, when Eli Manning dethroned Tom Brady. That level of experience and accomplishment would make him a wellspring of knowledge for Ward and others in the Tennessee locker room. Plus, he'd take what is already a solid defense and elevate it to elite heights.

Spags probably won't leave Kansas City, especially not for a low-profile head coaching job in Nashville. But also... never say never. If the Titans throw enough money at him and are committed enough to their pitch, we can't rule anything out. It's worth at least making an effort.