Some of the chairs are still open, and the music is still playing, but Matt Nagy was hoping that he wouldn't still be standing at this point.
For more than three months, Nagy was postured as the most likely next head coach of the Tennessee Titans following the decision to fire Brian Callahan. Reports connected Nagy to the opening immediately, even as Mike McCoy was being installed as interim HC. From there, the connections grew stronger with official interviews. It all looked sunny until news broke late on Monday night that Robert Saleh had won the job instead.
Saleh, the defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers, was a strong candidate for several teams who also came with head coaching experience, so it's not as if the Titans made a wild choice. Rather, it's just a shock considering how long Nagy was considered an obvious answer for the role.
With Saleh installed as head coach, there's still a desperate need (and opening) for an offensive coordinator to guide Cam Ward into his second season and beyond. Maybe Nagy still lands in Tennessee. But it's hard not to imagine Nagy as an insulted (or at least confused) coaching candidate, wondering how this will all play out.
It's impossible for anyone outside of Nissan Stadium in Nashville to know the logic behind the decision to hire Saleh. But it's also interesting to connect some known dots for at least some idea of the narrative at work.
First, it's important to acknowledge that any head coaching decision is going to leave others frustrated. That's the nature of any hire, which will leave qualified or even favored candidates waiting or another chance. If Nagy was the chosen one, Saleh and others would be asking the same questions—remember, the Titans were connected to 19 different options so there are a lot of hurt feelings on Tuesday morning.
Matt Nagy is left searching for answers after the Titans pivoted late in their coaching search to Robert Saleh.
That said, Nagy was the odds-on favorite for good reason. Someone was leaking reports to the likes of Dianna Russini (The Athletic) all along to build the connection, and those rumors were not wrong. Nagy was one of the finalists for the job who earned two official interviews before losing out to Saleh. It's just that somewhere along the line, Saleh positioned himself as the stronger leader.
Titans general manager Mike Borgonzi reportedly has a strong friendship with Nagy after years together in the Kansas City Chiefs organization. Borgonzi was a former front office exec who worked for three different GMs before working his way up to assistant GM under Brett Veach. Nagy was a longtime coach on Andy Reid's staff, and their familiarity with one another helped bolster the rumors to Tennessee.
This is also what might have hurt Nagy in the end. As Borgonzi was fielding questions from reporters about the hiring process, he was consistently being asked about blind spots in that regard. The Titans GM stated on more than one occasion that he was going to hire the best man for the job instead of defaulting to someone he already knew.
More than that, Nagy came with a bit of a perception issue, which reporters directly asked Borgonzi about. From being fired in Chicago as head coach of the Bears in 2021 to the middling success of the Chiefs offense in his final days as coordinator, Nagy wasn't exactly a fan favorite. Borgonzi deflected concerns there when asked, and Nagy deserves to be viewed as a viable candidate, but it was another hurdle for Borgonzi to dodge if hiring Nagy.
Had Borgonzi hired Nagy, the announcement would have immediately been met with concerns about whether or not the Titans had simply formed a new good ol' boys club in Tennessee at a critical juncture for the franchise. The length and breadth of the Titans head coach search seemed to be a response to this perception, but it's possible Nagy was a victim of being too favored. It'd be a frustration proposition for a new team to announce a new head coach only to face less-than-desirable optics from the outset.
All of this is conjecture, of course, and should be treated as such, but those very public obstacles for Borgonzi were clearly in the way of Nagy's potential hire. It would be silly if those things dictated the decision one way or the other, but the influence had to be felt. In the end, the organization will back Robert Saleh all the way, as they should, but Nagy isn't the only one searching for answers in the wake of the decision.