A coaching carousel is still spinning around the NFL as teams race to interview their favorite candidates for head coach openings following the 2023 season. The Cincinnati Bengals’ offensive coordinator, Brian Callahan, left the organization to accept the head coaching position with the Tennessee Titans, per a report from Adam Schefter on X.
Callahan has been the Bengals’ OC since 2019. QB Joe Burrow was drafted in 2020, so Callahan has been his only offensive coordinator over that time. The Bengals have been highly competitive over that time with a high-powered offense. Burrow was one of the top quarterbacks in the league over his two healthy seasons under Callahan.
The Bengals were just outside the top-five passing offenses in both 2021 and 2022 and remained competitive in 2023 despite Burrow’s season-ending injury and having to rely on QB Jake Browning.
Over his time with the Bengals, they lost 6 of 10 games against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Bengals will now start their search for an offensive coordinator as the Steelers kicked their search off today with an interview request to Los Angeles Rams pass-game coordinator Zac Robinson. It will be interesting to see if the two rival teams interview some of the same candidate pool. The Bengals’ OC job is more attractive at the moment due to them having a franchise quarterback and several other star players on that side of the ball.
Ian Rapoport posted on X shortly after the initial report that the Bengals have an in-house replacement for Callahan in QB coach Dan Pitcher. The only problem is that he has a full slate of interviews with other teams to be their offensive coordinators this week. That will be something to keep an eye on. If Pitcher hires elsewhere, the Bengals will be in the OC search along with the Steelers.
Prior to his time in Cincinnati, Callahan was a quarterbacks coach with the Detroit Lions from 2016-2017 and the then Oakland Raiders in 2018. He held three different assistant roles with the Denver Broncos from 2010-2015 before that. He would have worked with Derek Carr in Oakland, Matthew Stafford in Detroit, and Peyton Manning in Denver. He will now go to Tennessee to work with second-year QB Will Levis, who showed some promising flashes throughout his rookie season.
