The Tennessee Titans head into the offseason with a clearer chain of command. It was clarified from the Titans who does what when it comes to management. Chad Brinker, the Titans’ President of Football Operations, will oversee salary cap management, research and development, and analytics. General manager Mike Borgonzi will be in control of the team’s 53-man roster. And what else Borgonzi is spearheading is the Titans’ head coach search. Both will report separately to the Titans' majority owner, Amy Adams Strunk. This distinction in roles is fascinating in terms of the head coaching search for Tennessee.
As many know, Borgonzi came to the Titans from the Kansas City Chiefs last offseason. So naturally, when the news dropped of the distinction of roles, plenty pointed right back to the Kansas City Chiefs organization and, more directly, plenty brought up the name Matt Nagy. The current Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator has been back in Kansas City since 2022, but before that, he was the head coach of the Chicago Bears from 2018-2021. He had some success there, leading the Bears to the playoffs two of his four seasons. In his first season, he actually won the NFL Coach of the Year award for leading the Bears into the playoffs. But while he had some success in Chicago, some things that stood out on the other side of those positives. Nagy was 12-4 in his first season in Chicago, 8-8 in the following two seasons, and 6-11 in his last season with the Bears. That type of downward trajectory does not look good.
Along with the downward trajectory, there is also the thought of the offense with Tennessee. The Titans drafted Cam Ward number one overall, and one of their first objectives is to bring in a coach who can either help his personal upward trajectory or hire someone who can help that trajectory should the Titans hire a defensive coordinator. With Nagy, he would be coming into a situation he is very familiar with. When he was hired by the Bears in 2018, he also inherited a second-year quarterback who had been drafted in the first round. His name was Mitch Trubisky. And in his first season with Nagy, the former 2017 second overall pick was excellent, throwing for 3,223 yards along with 24 touchdowns to 12 interceptions. But after that, Trubisky was not the same. He threw for fewer yards and fewer touchdown passes each season following his first under Nagy, while dealing with some injury concerns, and eventually was benched in the 2020 season for veteran backup Nick Foles. Plenty blamed Trubisky, but Nagy has to carry some of the blame as well because whatever he was doing was not working to progress. Ward is more talented than Trubisky, but it has to be somewhat troubling for quarterback development to hear that it did not work out in Chicago.
Nagy has been part of the Chiefs' winning, and no one can deny his role in that. But what cannot be ignored is his first journey as a head coach and how that did not work out. Ultimately, the Titans are hosting a search and will cast a wide net to find the right guy. But with Nagy reportedly under consideration for the Titans' head coaching job, along with the recent organizational announcement, there has to be some level of concern.