Brian Callahan, Zac Taylor share rare football journey: 'Wouldn’t be here without you'

Hours before kickoff of his first game as a National Football League head coach, Brian Callahan sat alone in the head coach’s office inside the visiting locker room at Solider Field in Chicago.

When the 40-year-old accepted the Tennessee Titans head coach job on Jan. 24, his work and life transformed into a relentless firehose of questions and answers, schedules and schemes, people-managing and problem-solving.

Yet, for one moment on opening day, the chaos ceased.

Callahan was alone with his thoughts on the brink of beginning a defining chapter of his career.

He pulled out his phone. He needed to text Zac Taylor.

“Since I have found we get very rare moments of reflection, this lonely ass office on gameday is great for it,” Callahan wrote. “Appreciate everything you have done for me to help me get this opportunity. One of 32 head coaches. Good luck today. Rooting for you guys.”

The reply came quickly.

Bzzt.

“Love it,” Taylor wrote back. “Deserve it. Wouldn’t be here without you.”


Zac Taylor and Brian Callahan watch their team in their first minicamp as Bengals head coach and offensive coordinator in April of 2019. (John Minchillo / Associated Press)

Callahan served as Taylor’s offensive coordinator and closest confidant for five years as the Cincinnati Bengals rose from organizational rubble to championship games. Their friendship was born during Callahan’s spring breaks from UCLA spent at spring practices at the University of Nebraska, where Taylor played quarterback under Brian’s father, Bill. It developed into a football friendship as rare as the Bengals making the Super Bowl.

Even just finding the text message from Sept. 8 took minutes last week as Callahan aggressively scrolled through hundreds of texts, tips, photos, rants and jokes swapped in the name of sanity over the last three months.

Both coaches are enduring uniquely frustrating and exhausting seasons as the Bengals and Titans meet Sunday at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium — the Bengals are 5-8 and have a minuscule shot at the playoffs while the Titans have struggled to 3-10. Even in the impossibly competitive NFL world, they’ve lifted each other up from afar, just as they did together in Cincinnati.

“When I am sitting in the locker room after a loss, no one texts you,” Taylor said. “Except for my mom and my wife. My brother, maybe. And then it will be Cally. Most people don’t know what to say or do. He knows exactly what I’m doing in the moment. He knows I’m sitting there staring at the table thinking about all the things that just went wrong trying to win the game. And then your phone lights up. You know it’s going to be him.”

‘I felt the care. I felt the patience.’

When Callahan stood behind the podium during his introduction as coach of the Titans he admitted after only a few words the emotions of this moment might be harder to suppress than he thought.

He appeared to collect himself, however, running through a list of people to thank and expressions of gratitude about arriving at this moment.

That was until he reached the topic of Bengals’ owner Mike Brown. A man often the punchline of jokes and target for vitriol from outsiders broke the levee of Callahan’s tears and brought the news conference to a temporary halt as he tried to collect himself.

Why was it Brown who drew out those feelings?

“It was the full-circle moment of having to be a head coach but reflecting back on him investing and trusting in us when I first got there,” Callahan said last week. “I was 34 years old and given an opportunity with a bunch of guys that were kind of green and didn’t know much. I always found Mike was generous with his wisdom.”

The Bengals went 6-25-1 in the first two years with Taylor and Callahan leading the ship. Underneath the losses, they saw the progress. They felt the culture was changing, the talent level rising, but understood what that record meant in 31 other cities.

Brown believed and allowed more time. The decision changed the course of Callahan’s career as the Bengals reached the final four in back-to-back seasons.

Cincinnati operates differently — a way often scrutinized — but for someone who went through it, the opportunity to be in the center circle of all the decisions, from scouting to free agency to regular conversations with ownership about the issues of the day, left a lasting impression on his development and his heart.

“I felt the investment,” Callahan said. “I felt the care. I felt the patience. It’s rare in the NFL anymore to have somebody have perspective and have patience. I always felt like there was joy in that for him, too, to see people grow. I thought that was awesome. He’s such a rarity, I think, in the NFL because of how long he has done it, the perspective from years and years and years of doing it. The pride he felt running the football team. I just think there is something really cool about that.”

It was also part of what drew Callahan to family-owned Tennessee. The true differentiator, however, for Callahan was how Taylor took him behind the curtain of life as a head coach with complete transparency during their five years.

One day would be an issue with a player’s family. Injury developments. Maybe a trade request. An important interview. Practice schedule planning. An explosive conversation. A message from captains about the locker room. A player unhappy with his role. Potential coaching changes. Questions from the front office. Need for a discipline decision. Agents entering the fray. Work-life balance concerns. The list goes on.

“It was always funny because I would be in his office a lot, game planning, talking about things, you just realize the flow of people,” Callahan said. “There were people knocking at his door every five minutes. And you are like, ‘This is the most irritating s–t I have ever seen.’ But that’s the job. That’s what happens. There’s always people that need your time.”

In turn, Taylor needed Callahan’s time. For every problem, he needed somebody he could lean on. From Year 1 to the day the big issue of the moment was losing Callahan to Tennessee and working to retain Dan Pitcher as the new coordinator, Callahan was always nearly always the first ear to hear the process.

“He was the guy. If I was going through something, I was going right to his office and vent about it for a second,” Taylor said. “As a byproduct of that, he got to see exactly what I was going through and how I handled it.”

It often included a debrief of how a situation went wrong or a surprising source of frustration. How Taylor would do things differently next time. All of it ended up filling pages upon pages in Callahan’s Notability app. Those notes are now referenced regularly as he’s morphed his note-taking philosophy into a near replica of Taylor’s exhaustive method.

Callahan coached on NFL staffs for seven head coaches with the Broncos, Lions, Raiders and Bengals. From his perspective, this was rare.

“I just think about the head coaches I’ve been around — who are phenomenal head coaches and great people — I never heard of our coordinators having the kind of consistent conversation that Zac and I would have,” he said. “And understanding what was happening in the organization. All the things as an assistant coach you never think about. You are not exposed to it. I was exposed to all of it. I’m not saying other guys haven’t done this in other places, I just think my relationship with Zac, our friendship first and foremost and like-mindedness, to really connect personally and professionally, he really invested in me. I wouldn’t have been ready for the job without Zac doing all those things. Not even close to ready.”

When Titans general manager Ran Carthon began introducing Callahan that day in January, he thanked a long list of members of the Tennessee Titans organization, rattling off nine names along with their entire business staff.

Then he paused.

“One person who is not a member of this organization I would like to thank is Zac Taylor,” Carthon said. “His ability to communicate with us about Brian is unmatched.”


Titans general manager Ran Carthon, right, credits input from Zac Taylor as a big factor in hiring Brian Callahan as head coach. (George Walker IV / Associated Press)

Carthon reached out to Taylor during the interview process and the “unmatched” aspect of what transpired wasn’t all that strenuous in the eyes of the Bengals’ coach. He’d seen Callahan grow and command the offense, understand the operation, offer intricate knowledge of multiple schemes, leadership, quarterback play and every other aspect of being a head coach over the previous five years. For him, this wasn’t hard. It was overdue.

“Ran reached out and asked if you had a couple minutes to talk, I’d love to do it,” Taylor said. “I appreciated that. You don’t feel like you are selling someone, I’m just talking about Brian and all the reasons why I think he’s ready.”

‘I know exactly what he is feeling right now’

Titans receiver Tyler Boyd spent the first eight seasons of his career in Cincinnati. When all financials ended up similar among the final three teams on his list as a free agent, it was an “easy pick for me” going to Nashville.

“Because Cally is my guy,” Boyd said last week.

Boyd knows as much as anyone about the culture Callahan wanted to instill in Tennessee and what transformed a dire situation in Cincinnati.

Many details are the same. The quarterbacks still play “Jeopardy!” on Saturday night. The practice and camp schedules are similar. The terminology is much the same, as they spent the offseason installing mostly Cincinnati base concepts before growing the attack around the personnel from there.

The language of the team mission statement isn’t identical, not the “Physical, Hungry, Accountable Teammate” line on the wall at Paycor Stadium that Boyd would rattle off instinctively by the end of his tenure.

But the theme is the same. Everything revolves around becoming a connected team.

That takes time. And can take losses and offseasons, both of which Taylor and Callahan navigated together in Cincinnati. At the end of the 2020 season, they saw a team start to turn the corner under the surface despite an ugly record and grow into a Super Bowl run the next year. He sees the same signs of that with the Titans despite a 3-10 mark.

But this isn’t Cincinnati South.

“Cally has his own unique coaching style and it’s different than Cincinnati,” said cornerback Chidobe Awuzie, who spent the previous three seasons with the Bengals before signing with the Titans in free agency. “He’s a real fiery spirit.”


Zac Taylor’s relationship with Brian Callahan spawned from his days playing quarterback for Bill Callahan, right, at Nebraska. (Brian Bahr / Getty Images)

The spirit has stood out to those who know both places best.

“Cally was more the aggressor than Zac was,” Boyd said. “I always knew he was going to never shy away from letting his voice be heard.”

When Taylor comes across Callahan’s fiery moments, whether sideline shots or postgame comments, he doesn’t need to wait for his phone to buzz.

“I can tell watching his press conference after games exactly how he feels,” Taylor said. “Just because of a little moment where it’s like, ‘Yep, I don’t believe a word he is saying because I know exactly what he is feeling right now.’ You can maybe only see it in myself and somebody else going through that situation.”

This season’s situation provided no shortage of fire, frustration and venting while Callahan grinded through the monstrous task of enduring Year 1 as a head coach. He knew this would test him like no other moment in his career and he was mentally prepared because he lived it with Taylor.

“If I had not seen that,” he said, “that would hit you between the eyes.”

That hasn’t made the toughest moments any easier.

Bzzt.

“Football sucks,” Callahan texted to Taylor after one loss, joking as a form of catharsis. “This is a miserable sport.”

‘I also want to beat their ass’

Upon returning to his office following a 41-24 victory against the Raiders on Nov. 3, Pitcher wanted to alert Callahan of a play he would appreciate.

It was a 47-yard touchdown pass to Mike Gesicki that faked an underneath screen against a nosy Raiders secondary and left the tight end all alone running free in the secondary for one of the easiest scores you’ll see.

They loved those types of plays and hit one in a blowout win at Baltimore in 2021 to C.J. Uzomah.

Bzzt.

“I just said, ‘Hey, I know you are a connoisseur of these types of plays. Check out the fourth quarter,’” Pitcher said. “He had already seen it.”

Callahan’s always watching what’s happening in Cincinnati. He says if he can’t win the Super Bowl, he wants the Bengals to win it. He wants Joe Burrow to break all the records if his team can’t. He wants Pitcher — next in line on the Bengals’ staff to potentially ascend to a head coach position — to enjoy the same success he did going through three years of growth navigating the coaching cycle.

That’s why in the middle of the summer when Pitcher reached out for a debrief of Callahan’s experience, they talked for two hours on the phone.

“I just wanted to know, ‘What was it like for you? What did you feel most prepared for? What did you feel least prepared for?’” Pitcher said. “I took a lot of really good notes. I wanted to get him while it was fresh in his mind. I think as time goes on, I’m sure if you ask Zac about his transition his first year he probably doesn’t remember a lot of things that he dealt with. It just fades. So he was awesome and super gracious.”

None of that was shocking considering the connection between everyone and gratitude connecting these two franchises and these two head coaches.

That makes this Sunday so unique. For them, it’s not just another game, but also not a bitter cage match opening old wounds. Callahan went through it coaching against his father, Bill, for many years, even in the division with the Browns. They since have joined forces for the first time with his dad as offensive line coach in Tennessee for what Brian called “the coolest experience of my coaching career.”

He knows Burrow will be trying to put up 50 and defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo will be dipping into his bag of tricks for schemes that worked in training camp against Callahan.

This week around both facilities will feature plenty of “they-know-that-I-know-that-they-know-but-do-they-know-that-I-know-they-know?” plotting.

“You just watch the tape, scheme it up,” Taylor said. “There are things he’s going to know about us and we know about him, see if it matters.”


Friendships aside, Brian Callahan will try to go 1-0 against his old team on Sunday in Nashville. (Troy Taormina / Imagn Images)

When it ends, Taylor and Callahan will meet at midfield for a quick meeting, then retreat to that lonely coach’s office, well aware of what will be coming across the stadium WiFi.

Bzzt.

“They are people I care about and root for,” Callahan said. “It’s different when it’s somewhere that fired you. You want to burn the building down and go play them. You hope they lose by 100. That’s not how I feel with everyone there. I truly want success for all those guys, players, coaches, ownership, front office. Love those guys. I love them. That will be a little bit weird. I also want to beat their ass.”

(Illustration by Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic: photos by Ian Johnson, Wesley Hitt, Dylan Buell / Getty Images and Stephen Brashear / Associated Press)



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