HOUSTON ― As the Tennessee Titans’ losing streak reached double digits after an embarrassing 26-0 bludgeoning on Sept. 28 by the Houston Texans, beleaguered coach Brian Callahan said he isn’t feeling added pressure or fears about losing his job.
“No, no,” Callahan said after the game. “Like I’ve said before, I just show up and do my job and we do it as hard as we can. It’s everybody on our staff. We work our tails off and we try to do everything we can to put ourselves in position to win, and we haven’t. It’s just the reality of our jobs in the league.”
The Titans are 0-4 to start the 2025 season, pushing his coaching record to 3-18 in 21 games at the helm. The offense he was hired to design and lead was just shut out for the first time in his tenure (and 2019 overall), managing 175 yards and 3.8 yards per play. Rookie quarterback Cam Ward, the first overall pick in April’s draft, completed 38% of his passes as the unit failed to advance into the red zone, let alone the end zone.
When asked what grounds him in his convictions and confidence as the negative results mount, Callahan launched into a lengthy discussion about the team he and his staff have helped build.
“My job is to try to lead, and leading’s hard. It’s hard right now,” Callahan admitted. “But that’s my job. My job is to continue to fight. Continue to help wherever I can help and keep pushing guys to continue to get better. That’s the only thing you can do when you’re in a spot like this. You just keep coming out and you keep swinging. None of it’s been good enough. And we all know that. That’s something you’ve just got to keep fighting through and you’ve got to find a way to break through at some point.”
Multiple times, Callahan drew the distinction between a team not fighting and a team not playing well enough. He believes the Titans are in the latter category. The fight is there, as he sees it. The effort and resilience and want-to haven’t waned. The team just isn’t playing good football.
That, ultimately, reflects back on Callahan too.
“It’s certainly not for lack of intent or lack of effort or lack of focus,” Callahan said. “We’re trying to do all the things that we need to do to win the football game. During the week, the guys work. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it. We had one of our best Thursday practices of the week. It’s hard to stomach that when you show up to a game and it looks like that.”
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.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Is Brian Callahan sweating job as Titans coach after latest embarrassment
