NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Titans are finalizing a deal to hire San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh as their next head coach, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday night.
Saleh, the former New York Jets coach, spent Monday in Tennessee with the Titans, and the sides impressed each other enough to move forward together, sources said.
Tennessee also had completed an in-person interview with Matt Nagy on Monday.
Saleh is set to become the 20th coach in Oilers/Titans history and the seventh since the team moved to Nashville in 1997. He’ll take over a team that fired Brian Callahan in mid-October and finished 3-14 but has a young quarterback in Cam Ward, the No. 1 pick last year.
The Titans’ brass originally scheduled a virtual interview with Saleh on Sunday, but it elected to expedite the process by having him come to Nashville for an in-person meeting Monday after hosting Nagy, the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator, earlier in the day. Saleh’s visit wowed Borgonzi and the group enough to sway the decision in his favor. The decision was ultimately Borgonzi’s but the group collectively felt Saleh was the best candidate.
This will be Saleh’s second stint as a head coach. He served as the Jets’ coach from 2021 to 2024 after a four-year run as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator that included a Super Bowl appearance after the 2020 season.
Saleh’s time with the Jets never got on track, even though New York traded for future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers in hopes of jump-starting the coach’s third season. Rodgers ruptured his left Achilles in the 2023 season opener, and the Jets finished 7-10. The next season, with Rodgers back, Saleh was fired after five games. He finished with a 20-36 record in New York.
Among the lessons Saleh said he learned in New York was to better connect with the whole roster, which is what he worked on during his second stint with the 49ers despite being the defensive coordinator. That coincides with some of the traits Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi has said he wanted in the next coach.
“That person ultimately has to connect everybody in the building,” Borgonzi said. “You have to have that balance of being demanding, connecting people in the building and just bringing people together.”
The Titans have not made the playoffs since 2021 when they were the AFC’s top seed and lost to the Cincinnati Bengals in the divisional round under former coach Mike Vrabel.
The first order for Saleh, a defensive-minded coach, will be to find an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach who can help Ward develop into their franchise quarterback. Tennessee averaged just 16.7 points this season, its second fewest since the team moved to Nashville.
The Titans are set to move into a new stadium in 2027.
