Titans’ Brian Callahan ranked outside top 5 of head coach hires

For the first time since 2018, the Tennessee Titans have a new head coach in Brian Callahan, who was hired just a few weeks after the team parted ways with Mike Vrabel.

Since then, the former Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator has been busy filling out his staff, with the most notable additions being offensive coordinator Nick Holz, defensive coordinator Dennard Wilson, and his father, offensive line coach Bill Callahan.

Callahan was one of eight new head-coaching hires around the NFL. Derrik Klassen of The 33rd Team ranked all eight and placed Callahan at No. 6.

Here was part of Klassen’s analysis:

Being on that Bengals staff makes it difficult to gauge Callahan’s impact. Callahan was the coordinator under an offensive head coach, Zac Taylor, which obscures some clarity on who was responsible for what. 

Likewise, QB Joe Burrow is a quarterback who comes with his own offensive scheme in a way. Burrow wants to be in the shotgun, spread the field and pepper defenses underneath and deep outside the numbers. In that sense, separating the quarterback from the scheme is challenging. 

That said, Callahan’s offenses showed impressive growth in the past two seasons. Everyone remembers the explosive 2021 Bengals offense, but as teams adapted the following year, that approach had to go away. 

The 2022 Bengals shifted more towards quick passing and greatly expanded their run game to make for a more balanced offense. In 2023, the Bengals shifted again, trying to take more of an under-center approach. Burrow’s bum ankle threw a wrench in that, but you saw what they wanted to do when Jake Browning stepped into the lineup. 

Over the past three seasons, Callahan was responsible for the Bengals’ passing attack that consistently ranked in the top half of the league.

In 2022, Cincinnati’s passing game ranked fifth in the NFL, averaging 265.0 yards per game.

This past season, Cincinnati’s offense finished No. 15 overall in passing, averaging 229.1 yards per game, which was split between Joe Burrow and Jake Browning. The latter accounted for 1,936 passing yards in nine games after Burrow was lost for the season with a wrist injury.

The Titans are hoping that Callahan’s offensive scheme can help Will Levis develop into one of the premier quarterbacks in the NFL. As a rookie, Levis averaged 200.9 yards per game across nine games in a Tennessee passing game that ranked fourth-worst (180.4 yards per game) in the NFL.