Titans head coach Robert Saleh said that he believes offensive coordinator Brian Daboll is the “perfect man to match up” with quarterback Cam Ward as the team works to continue developing the 2025 first-round pick after a strong finish to his rookie season.
Ward feels the same way, even if it means that he’s going to hear some blunt criticism from time to time. Ward said that Daboll “is going to let me know the real” whether it is positive or negative and that he’ll welcome hearing tough things because it will help him get to where he wants to go in the NFL.
“I like that he is a fiery coach,” Ward said, via the team’s website. “He is going to get on my ass when he needs to, and he is going to hold me to a high standard. And that’s the standard I want to be held to.”
The Ward-Daboll pairing will be crucial to Saleh’s success in his tenure with the Titans and anything that needs to happen to make it a successful one should be on the table as the team moves toward the 2026 season.
Gus Bradley is following Robert Saleh to Tennessee.
Via Paul reporter Paul Kuharsky, the Titans are hiring Bradley as the team’s defensive coordinator.
Bradley, 59, spent the 2025 season as San Francisco’s assistant head coach with Saleh the team’s defensive coordinator. After his stint as Jacksonville’s head coach from 2013-2016, Bradley has served as defensive coordinator of the Chargers (2017-2020), Raiders (2021), and Colts (2022-2024).
Unlike his first stint as a head coach with the Jets, Saleh said he plans to call Tennessee’s defensive plays in 2026.
Defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons went to the playoffs in his first three seasons with the Titans, but the last four seasons have not brought the same kind of success to Tennessee.
The team is 19-49 since the start of the 2022 season and they are starting over with their third head coach in that span. Robert Saleh is the new man in charge on the sideline and he’s got a fan in the team’s top defensive player.
Saleh talked about playing with speed and violence in his introductory press conference and Simmons said on Sunday “that’s how I like to play the game.” Simmons thinks his teammates will feel the same way about playing for someone with Saleh’s energy.
“We have a young football team, and I feel like we still have to figure things out,” Simmons said, via the team’s website. “And I think with Saleh coming him, with his style of coaching, I think it will be great for us, especially having such a young football team. I think the culture change will be good for us.”
Simmons won’t have anything to do with how the Titans fare on the offensive side of the ball, but sorting that out should keep the defense out of bad positions and set Simmons up for a chance to make impactful plays in wins rather than being the bright light of another disappointing defeat.
The Titans are betting that the second time will be the charm for Robert Saleh as a head coach.
Saleh was 20-36 over three-plus seasons as the Jets’ head coach before being fired early in the 2024 season, but the Titans still tabbed him to be their next head coach earlier this month. They formally introduced Saleh at a press conference on Thursday and a lot of Saleh’s messages sounded the same as the ones he sent while with the Jets.
Saleh preached playing fast, violent football and broke out his “all gas, no brakes” motto, but also stressed that his experience with the Jets helped make him a different coach this time around.
“There is no handbook to a first time at anything you do,” Saleh said, via the team’s website. “The proper question would be: What didn’t I learn? There is so much to gain from any time you are in the chair as head coach, and there is so many learning experiences that I had. I could sit here and talk to you for the next four hours about all those things. But I can assure you there is tremendous growth from the opportunity I had as a coach and through that growth I think I am more prepared now than I’ve ever been to attack this position.”
One significant difference from his Jets time is that Saleh will be calling the defensive plays in Tennessee and the Titans hope that another will involve the kind of quarterback development that never took place when Saleh was working with Zach Wilson in his previous stop.
Robert Saleh’s second stint as an NFL head coach will feature one significant difference from his time with the Jets.
Saleh did not call defensive plays during his three-plus years as the Jets’ head coach and he said at a press conference on Thursday that he will be making those calls for the Titans. Saleh said he felt like the “timeout, red card” guy when he was not calling plays during a game and explained why he’s more comfortable taking on that responsibility.
“Calling plays, for me, is not necessarily about control, but it’s about connecting with the players,” Saleh said. “When you are a play caller and you are calling plays, you feel the strain you’re putting on them with each call. You’re feeling the connection, you’re feeling what each one is going through. I can feel the weight of the play call on individual players in those moments.”
The Titans will also have a former head coach calling offensive plays in Brian Daboll and the hope is that the pairing leads to a lot more winning than either experienced while coaching their home games at MetLife Stadium.
