The Tennessee Titans have spoken with 15 candidates for their head coach vacancy. After rigorously searching through the market for weeks, Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator Matt Nagy and San Francisco 49ers’ defensive coordinator Robert Saleh were called in for in-person interviews on Monday. And it seems like the front office has made its decision.

“Titans are working to finalize a deal to hire 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh as their head coach. Saleh spent Monday in Tennessee with the Titans, and the two sides impressed each other enough to move forward together,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter wrote on X.

Saleh had been in Nashville for those meetings and was scheduled to sit down with the Arizona Cardinals on Tuesday about their own vacancy. That trip can be crossed off the calendar now. Tennessee had already seen three other coaching targets come off the board just before scheduled interviews. They’ve found the one.

And they found the right one. As a head coach, he went 20–36 with the New York Jets before being let go during the 2024 season. He quickly resurfaced in San Francisco as defensive coordinator and helped push the 49ers back into the postseason. That run ended with a rough loss to Seattle, but given the injuries the Niners were dealing with, getting there at all said plenty.

Saleh’s path to this point has been long. He began coaching 24 years ago at Michigan State, moved into the NFL three years later, and broke in as a defensive intern with the Houston Texans in 2005. After six seasons there, he joined the Seattle Seahawks as a defensive quality-control coach, then headed to Jacksonville in 2014 as linebackers coach.

By 2017, he was back in San Francisco, where he eventually took over the defense. From the Titans’ perspective, this could be a big swing in the right direction. Even without pass rusher Nick Bosa and linebacker Fred Warner for much of the year, the 49ers still held opponents to 21.8 points per game, 13th best in the league. Tennessee, by comparison, gave up 28.1 points per game.

Help was definitely needed on defense. And Saleh wouldn’t be arriving just to fix the defense. According to reporter Connor Hughes, if Saleh landed another head-coaching job, he was interested in bringing Mike McDaniel with him as offensive coordinator, continuing a partnership that began in San Francisco when McDaniel was an OC in 2021.

That would be interesting. But are the Titans right to let Matt Nagy pass?

Titans pass on Matt Nagy

When you line them up side by side, it’s easy to see why both Matt Nagy and Robert Saleh were viewed as top-tier candidates. Passing on either one was always going to feel uncomfortable. But with resumes like theirs, neither coach was coming in to be anyone’s No. 2. Someone had to be told no. This time, it was Nagy.

His background stacks up with just about anyone in this cycle. Nagy arrived in Kansas City in 2013 as a quarterbacks coach and climbed quickly. Three years later, he was running the offense. By 2018, he had parlayed that into a head-coaching job with the Chicago Bears. Four seasons later, a 34–31 record wasn’t enough to save him, and he was let go.

The Kansas City Chiefs welcomed him back in 2022 as a senior assistant and quarterbacks coach. By 2023, he was once again the offensive coordinator. On paper, the results looked fine—two consecutive SB appearances, but the cracks showed this season.

The offense stalled, the team slid to 6–11, and the playoffs were never really in reach. That downturn triggered a sweeping reset in Kansas City, and Nagy became part of it.

He didn’t land the Tennessee Titans job, but his options aren’t gone. Nagy has interviews lined up with the Baltimore Ravens, Las Vegas Raiders, and Arizona Cardinals. Still, there’s real pressure here. If an HC offer doesn’t materialize, the path forward becomes much less clear.

The Chiefs opted to reunite with former offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. Nagy wasn’t fired in the traditional sense; his contract had just run its course, but the message was the same. The Chiefs chose a different direction. However this plays out, Nagy won’t be back in Kansas City.