The Titans became the first NFL team to fire their head coach this season when they let go of Brian Callahan on October 13, replacing him with interim head coach Mike McCoy. Tennessee will be in the market for a new permanent head coach this offseason, and the coaching market should be ripe with juice options.
Prediction market Kalshi has odds posted for who could take the Titans' job, and, as of this writing, two former NFL head coaches have the highest chances to do so.
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The percentages you see below represent what the market roughly believes each candidate's chances are (the "spread" is the reason it adds up to more than 100%, and it's how market makers make money. Again, see our full Kalshi how-to guide for why and how this works.)
Titans Next Coach Odds
Odds via Kalshi and update every hour.
Tennessee Titans Next Head Coach
The Situation
Brian Callahan was less than two years into his initial five-year contract with Tennessee when he was shown the door, leaving the Titans with not only a head coaching vacancy, but an abysmal 1-5 record to start the season.
Over his season-and-a-half run, Callahan's Titans went 4-19, a stretch that included a -69 point differential in the first four weeks of this season. The team has not fared any better under interim head coach Mike McCoy, going 0-2 under his command thus far.
The Field
Of the coaches with odds posted in the graphic above, six — Kliff Kingsbury, Arthur Smith, Robert Saleh, Matt Nagy, Mike McCarthy, and Brian Flores — have held NFL head coaching positions before. The other four — Steve Sarkisian, Todd Monken, Jesse Minter, and Joe Brady — have either been coaches at the college level and/or highly successful coordinators.
Kingsbury, Smith, and Sarkisian stand atop the table with odds between 3% and 4% to become the Titans' next head coach, and all three are currently employed by NFL or college teams. Let's walk through each of their cases.
Kliff Kingsbury
Kingsbury was tapped to run the Arizona Cardinals back in 2019 after a successful run as the Texas Tech head coach. The Cardinals only made the playoffs once during his tenure, and finished 2022 with a 4-13 record that resulted in Kingsbury's firing.
Since that first NFL stop, Kingsbury returned to the league as the Commanders' offensive coordinator in 2024, helping the development of a Jayden Daniels-led offense that made it to the NFC Championship Game last season. Despite some regression in D.C. this year, Kingsbury's name is likely to come up in head coaching discussions this offseason, and would fit a Tennessee team that has had trouble defining its offensive identity for years on end.
Arthur Smith
Smith was arguably the last man who ran a successful Tennessee Titans offense when he was the coordinator there from 2019 to 2020. So, the opportunity to come back and lead the team as its head coach could be an exciting one for the current Steelers' OC.
His success with the Titans led to Smith getting the Atlanta Falcons head coaching job in 2021, where he lasted three seasons before his unceremonious exit. In Atlanta, Smith's name became synonymous with the underutilization of former top draft picks such as Drake London, Kyle Pitts, and Bijan Robinson. He'll have to right his reputation if he gets a second shot at a head coaching gig.
Steve Sarkisian
A veteran of the college game, Sarkisian has never held an NFL head coaching role. He has had successful stints at the helm of Washington, USC, and, most recently, Texas, as well as fruitful OC positions at Alabama and with the Falcons.
Sarkisian is well-compensated at Texas and seems to get what he needs personnel-wise, so there's no immediate reason for him to jump to an NFL head coaching gig for the first time in his career. But if the Titans come correct on the money front and prove to him that he'll have the support he needs in Tennessee, he could possibly be convinced to take the job.
