The Tennessee Titans fired head coach Mike Munchak on Friday. What made the move especially weighty was that Munchak has been with the franchise since being drafted in the first round of the 1982 draft.
“Believe me, we will not disappoint you this year.” This was Mike Munchak’s statement in the preseason about the direction of the team. In the first quarter of the season, he was correct, as the team started 3-1 and oft-injured starting QB Jake Locker seemed to be turning the corner. Locker was injured in the Week 4 demolition of the Jets and the offense was never the same. Discounting a 2-0 finish against division opponents Houston and Jacksonville, two franchises who defeated the Titans earlier in the year and next year’s Number 1 and Number 3 picks in the draft, the Titans were 2-8 for the duration.
It was going to be a tough situation after Munchak shuffled his coaching staff following 2012’s 6-10 finish. During a Friday meeting with new CEO Tommy Smith and General Manager Ruston Webster, Munch had the option to stay on as head coach but only if he made major changes to his assistants. He flew back to Nashville, slept on it, and declined on Saturday.
Where does Munchak’s departure leave the franchise? Ownership is an underrated factor in coercing a new coach to take over. Bud Adams had a succession plan in place after his death in October. There is no single person in his family or the Titans’ front office who can replace him. Tommy Smith, Adams’s son-in-law and the man who took the title of CEO upon Adam’s death, initially turned down an opportunity to work with the franchise when it moved to Tennessee in 1997. Bud Adam’s grandson Kenneth Adams IV (Bud is the II) has worked in the front office since 2006. Any new coach has to weigh this when considering whether to take the job.
General Manager Ruston Webster will have a major voice in determining who’s next, especially considering Tommy Smith’s inexperience at the position. In a Saturday evening blog post on ESPN, Paul Kuharsky quotes Jim Wyatt of The Tennessean mentioning two outside candidates for the job, Seattle defensive coordinator Dan Quinn and Dallas special teams coach Rich Bisaccia.
Special teams coach? It’s unusual, but John Harbaugh was the special teams coach of the Philadelphia Eagles before taking the Ravens’ head job in 2008. 2013 was Harbaugh’s first season of not making the playoffs in six years at the job. Let’s not forget that in his first year as a coach, with a rookie QB, Harbaugh came into Nashville and beat the top-seeded Titans. Bisaccia has been a special teams coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2002-2010 and had the same job along with the assistant head coach title with the San Diego Chargers before signing with the Dallas Cowboys in the 2013 offseason. Ruston Webster was with the Bucs during Bisaccia’s tenure so they are familiar with each other.
Dan Quinn has been a defensive coach his entire career. He had two-year stints with the 49ers, Dolphins, Jets, and Seahawks as a defensive line coach before getting the defensive coordinator job at the University of Florida from 2011-2012. He was hired as the Seahawks’ Defensive Coordinator for the 2013 season. It’s pretty typical in the NFL for a position coach to bounce from city to city.
Jeff Fisher was a defensive coach, and despite the way his tenure ended, he won 142 games with the Oilers and Titans. Mike Munchak was an unusual hire because he had never run an NFL offense and he stated that he’d only want to be a head coach or an offensive line coach. Despite the presence of Munchak and fellow Hall of Famer Bruce Matthews as the teams offensive line coach, the Titans finished only 14th in the NFL in rushing yards and 19th in yards per carry. There was improvement, from 16 rushing touchdowns from 2012’s paltry 10.
Fisher put a stamp on the franchise. His teams were known for strong defenses and a no-nonsense run game. When a team played the Titans, they knew that it was going to be a battle. Munchak wanted a similar team during his tenure. They made great strides in 2013, but too many close losses and flat efforts doomed his efforts.
A new coach will have to come in and change that identity. One advantage any potential new coach will have is to select his own staff. It’s unlikely that more than a couple of the current assistants will be retained. Ruston Webster said he would talk to the staff today, which probably led to a lot of frantic phone calls this weekend. While the head coach and top assistants make nice salaries, the lower-level coaches get paid next to nothing with very little in the way of job security.
There are few ways to get the team’s supporters worked up when things have been so mediocre for so long. Last year brought the free-agent shopping spree, with mixed results. The draft brings intrigue, although it’s rare for one draft class to have a major immediate impact. The fan base has to be excited about the prospect of a new head coach. For the most part, this year’s new coaches turned around their franchises, including retread Andy Reid and first-timer Chip Kelly. For the Titans, getting a young NFL coordinator like Quinn, a hot college coach like Gus Malzahn and even a former head coach like Norv Turner brings the prospect of better days and playoff wins.
If there’s a bitter taste to this transition, it’s that the break from Munchak was anything but clean. Stories that he was offered to keep the job, but only if he fired his staff, and the sudden change from Friday’s “he’s staying” to Saturday’s “he’s fired” shows a bit of uncertainty in the front office. If anyone needs to chart the course of the franchise, it’s the guys upstairs. If there are mixed messages from the men running the ship, the franchise will remain stuck in neutral for another coaching cycle.
Zach Law is a zero-time award winner who can be found on his site and on Twitter. He recalls the Music City Miracle, albeit barely.
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