Mike McCoy Leading the Titans with Fear-Based Football

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INDIANAPOLIS – Remember when the Titans dumped Brian Callahan and the general thinking was, at least the Titans will play more like there is nothing to lose.
 
Well, so much for that.

Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. (11) makes a touchdown catch against Tennessee Titans cornerback Jalyn Armour-Davis (18) during the first half an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)
Michael Pittman beats Jalyn Armour-Davis for a TD/ ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mike McCoy is proving himself to be the anti-interim. The job is supposed to come with a freer spirit, but instead, he is making the same sort of tight, conservative choices his old boss made. And the people who chose him – Amy Adams Strunk, Chad Brinker and Mike Borgonzi – should be held in contempt after his second big loss, a 38-14 embarrassment to the Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium that more than doubled a ridiculously high point spread.

The Colts are much better, and they were going to beat Tennessee.

So why punt on a fourth-and-from the Colts’ 42 trailing 17-7 with 11:30 left in the first half?

Here’s a chance to be aggressive and stay in the game. But the Titans’ thinking was to stay close and believe they can keep a two-score game a two-score game and stand toe-to-toe

A team that had been outscored 48-16 in the third quarter through seven games thinks, “Let’s punt it away and play defense.” A team that had, through the first half, given up a 56 percent third-down conversion rate, 14 first downs, 11.2 yards per catch and 9 yards a carry to Jonathan Taylor said, “Let’s play field position with the NFL’s No. 1 yardage offense, that’s scored the most offensive touchdowns, with the league’s most productive running back.”

That doesn’t just fly in the face of logic; it’s living in fantasy land.

“Hindsight, you look back and the last thing I thought they were going to do was have the big touchdown run right after that,” McCoy said. “So you look back and say, ‘Yeah, we should have gone for it.”

Maybe an 80-yard scoring run by Taylor was a little unexpected, but a scoring drive shouldn’t have been, given who this year’s Colts are.

Just 10 offensive plays later, the Titans were going for it on fourth-and-6 from their own 44, because they were down 31-7.

There was an earlier punt that wasn't exactly courageous either.

The Titans are now 1-7 and with the Jets’ grabbing their first win of the season over the Bengals, they are one of three one-win teams.

Fans have accepted just how bad they are, but they aren’t accepting conservatism like this, BryMakfrom a coach they thought would at least be different from Callahan.

I asked McCoy why he was not being different from the guy he replaced.

“I’m my own self, I’m Mike,” he said.

You act a lot like Brian. Mike. It would make so, so much sense for you to act differently from Brian.

There are tapes in the building of Mike Mularkey’s 2015 interim time after Ken Whisenhunt was booted. The results were not dramatically different, but he refreshed things, gave them a different feel. Go watch.

It’s impossible to imagine McCoy as a good messenger in front of the team when he’s so incredibly poor with a modest media corps, be it at the post-game podium or in a casual sit-down on an informal Friday.

Peter Skoronski and Cedric Gray are two of the team’s few productive players. They don’t want to undermine anything or anyone, but they also aren’t going to run away from the obvious.

Each indicated they don’t want the Titans to be rash but they wouldn’t mind some additional boldness.

“That’s a fair point, I don’t disagree with that,” Skoronski said. “Obviously, we’re 1-7 and we have a fired coach. Like you said, we don’t have a ton going on right now. I’m not necessarily against that. But you can’t just do whatever the hell you want.

“We’re already having tough games and you don’t want to make them any tougher by putting ourselves behind by being just reckless. So I think it’s a balance. …I’m not exactly sure what that looks like right now, but nothing against that.”

Said Gray: “We’re sitting here 1-7, we’re not playing very good football, so sometimes it is kind of like, ‘What do you have to lose in certain situations?’ But at the end of the day, those aren’t my decisions to make; I’m not a coach, that’s not my job."

Is McCoy scared of what will happen if something gutsy backfires? It’s not going to be worse than this, I promise. 

Ward said he’s in go-for-it mode any time the Titans cross midfield. They went there five times against the Colts without getting any points, raising that number to 20 for the season. Twenty times they’ve crossed midfield and not scored. That’s 2.5 times a game.

"We want to be an aggressive team,” Ward said. “Especially with the record we have right now. We have to be an aggressive team at the end of the season to get to where we want to be. So we’ve just got to keep going one day at a time and got to try to win a game next week.

The players are thirsty for a cause, for aggression and boldness and their coach is frittering away timeouts and a chance at points in his first game, calling on the punt team in his second.

Are they thinking A) Hey fellas, let’s rally around this leadership. Let’s put it on the line for McCoy. Let’s all wear visors.

Or B) Can’t wait for January. Sure hope they nail that hire. Who’s next?