The Tennessee Titans are at the top of a mountain, and somebody just dropped the first snowball.
“Whenever you’re 1-5, it should be a wake-up call to begin with,” safety Amani Hooker said. “They moved on from the coach. Now if we continue to lose, they’re going to start moving on from the players.”
It’s hard to describe the attitude in the Titans’ locker room as of Oct. 15, just two days after the franchise parted ways with coach Brian Callahan after a 4-19 start to his coaching career. It wasn’t necessarily downbeat. It certainly wasn’t defeated. The closest word might be unstirred. Not disaffected. Just a workmanlike response to playing for a franchise that has made so many significant changes all too recently.
“It happened,” defensive captain Jeffery Simmons said. “We all have a job. Our job is to prepare and get ready for this week.”
“My job is to play quarterback,” rookie Cam Ward said. “My job is to help lead this team to wins. I’m going to support whatever decision we make. The guys in the locker room will support it. At the end of the day, with coach or without coach, we’re trying to win football games.”
Ward was vocal during the offseason about craving continuity from the coaching staff and about how highly he thinks of Callahan. Now that Callahan has been fired, Ward is sticking to the company lines. He elected not to answer a direct question about whether the change at the top was needed, and he said he isn’t frustrated by the immediate continuity change because he dealt with coaching changes in college.
While that’s partially true, it’s because Ward transferred multiple times in college. He never played for a team that fired a coach after the season, let alone one-third of the way through. Some players on the Titans, however, have been through situations like this one.
Veteran safety Quandre Diggs, Ward’s cousin, was a rookie in Detroit in 2015 when, by Nov. 1, the Lions had already fired their team president, general manager, offensive coordinator and two other coaches. After starting 1-7, that Lions team finished 6-2 down the stretch to nearly salvage a winning record.
“We just locked in and we got on a roll,” Diggs said. “Once you start winning and you figure out how to win, those things start to change the morale in the locker room and change the intensity. When you get in those tight games, you learn how to win.”
Interim coach Mike McCoy has already instituted some small tweaks to the Titans’ process, hoping to engineer some change to his liking. He has adjusted the timing of some meetings, went a little longer during individual periods in practice, and increased the tempo during and between drills in service of a “you’re going to play the way you practice” mentality.
McCoy also is less candid than Callahan as a voice for the franchise. He says he’s not the type to talk about injuries or schemes or strategies. When asked about his philosophy on being aggressive, he said it depends on the game. When asked about his philosophy on analytics, he said it depends on the moment. When asked about his coaching style, he simply said he likes to win.
Players are broadly complimentary of McCoy, but there’s an acknowledgement from some that McCoy is only in Callahan’s old job because the players didn’t do enough to protect their coach. As Hooker puts it, it’s not Callahan’s fault that he can’t go out on the field and catch passes or make tackles. The players have to do that. And they believe they’re capable of doing that.
“It’s not like we don’t have the talent,” Hooker said. “We have the talent and we have the guys that care about ball. That’s what it takes.”
But, to Hooker’s original point, change begets change in the NFL. When the Titans host coach Mike Vrabel and the New England Patriots on Oct. 19 (noon CT, CBS), it’s likely only four players who ever played for Vrabel in Nashville will be in the starting lineup. And remember, Vrabel was the Titans’ coach just 24 games ago.
Unless the Titans experience the kind of reinvigoration that Diggs and the 2015 Lions did, a new coach is going to come in with new ideas and philosophies, and the old way will be on the outs.
Only one way to prevent that.
“A guy like Cally, it’s . . . ” Hooker said, pausing, “if we were winning, he wouldn’t have got fired.”
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X @nicksuss. Subscribe to the Talkin’ Titans newsletter for updates sent directly to your inbox.
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