The Tennessee Titans’ offensive coordinator search was pretty quiet publicly, as reports confirmed the team’s interest in four candidates during the process.
Tennessee reportedly requested interviews with the Kansas City Chiefs’ Eric Bieniemy and Matt Nagy, the Atlanta Falcons’ Charles London, and they spoke with passing-game coordinator Tim Kelly, who ultimately got the job.
However, Bieniemy revealed he didn’t take any offensive coordinator interviews, so he wasn’t someone Tennessee actually talked to.
And, there was never any confirmation of interviews with Nagy or London, the latter of whom Tennessee hired as its new quarterbacks coach and offensive pass-game coordinator.
On the surface, it doesn’t appear the Titans did much interviewing, which leads us to believe the choice was Kelly all along.
Days after announcing the Kelly hiring, head coach Mike Vrabel revealed to “The Buck Reising Show” that the team spoke with at least six candidates for the job, although he didn’t go into specifics about who those candidates were.
“I would say there was at least six people that we spoke with at length,” Vrabel said. “I would say that’s probably a good number.”
Even if the number is as high as Vrabel says it is, we don’t know all of the names, so we can’t say for sure just how much the Titans considered an outside candidate.
Of course, the hope all along was that the Titans would go with an out-of-house choice just like they did at general manager with Ran Carthon, with Tennessee desperately needing a shake-up on offense.
It’s safe to say the overall reaction from the fan base was lukewarm at best, as Kelly carries the stain of being associated with Todd Downing’s 2022 offense, whether fair or not.
The good news is, Kelly couldn’t be any worse than Downing was, so at least the Titans have that going for them.
