NASHVILLE, Tenn. – When the Titans chose to keep Brian Callahan for a second year, they added an additional year to the two-year deals held by the position coaches who started with him in 2024.
Easton Freeze first reported on Tuesday that those extensions had been granted -- a common practice around the league.
It was the proper treatment for those coaches. If you leave them as lame ducks, they can be tempted to spend more time worrying about their employment future and less time worrying about their work.
And while it makes it seem as if Amy Adams Strunk will be on the hook for a bunch of salaries each worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2026 for assistants who will be let go when the Titans hire a new coach, odds are she will actually pay little of that money.
Most of those coaches will move on to other jobs in the league or in college, and the Titans’ scheduled payments to them will be offset by their new salaries.
That’s the way coaching movement works in the NFL.
When a new team hires a fired assistant who has not completed his contract, it has to pay him what the league considers market value. The new employer may pay a bit less, in which case the old one pays the difference. But the new team could also be paying the same or more if a coach lands in a lateral job.
Similarly, the Titans' new head coach will hire coaches who've been let go elsewhere and Tennessee will offset the salaries due them by their old teams.
Offsets also apply when a coach under contract takes a new college job.
While Strunk deserves the grief for her primary hires not lasting long enough – she’ll be paying Brian Callahan through 2028 – this isn’t an instance where the Titans committed some gaffe.
They did what teams typically do. Once the chairs are shuffled, having done so probably won’t cost them much at all.
Dennard Wilson and Nick Holz had three-year deals from the start and didn’t get extended.
It seems a reasonable presumption that John Fassel got a three-year contract as a new coordinator this year and is under contract through 2027. Management is likely to ask a new head coach to give Fassel full consideration for his post on the new staff.