Robert Saleh Is Changing the Titans' Culture Fast
Buck Reising describes the different feelings out of the Titans organization after their opening press conference today ahead of Training Camp compared to the one from last year. There is a new approach in Tennessee and Buck talks all about it.
Video Transcript
The fake Ted Lasso era of Titans football is dead, done, never coming back.
That's the biggest takeaway that I had from Mike Borgonzi and Coach Robert Saleh's opening press conference of training camp 2026.
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So today, we are going to talk about this press conference and how much you actually are able to learn at a pre-training camp press conference featuring a general manager and an NFL h- head coach.
Some things are applicable, some things are more overarching themes that will carry into the season.
There's not that many opportunities that we will have to speak to Mike Borgonzi in season, as a matter of fact.
In fact, we probably won't see him again until roster cutdown day, which is, about a month away, little more than a month away from right now.
But the biggest takeaway was not necessarily about the roster, though there are going to be roster competitions.
There are going to be a number of different things that are worth monitoring that will be- have bearing on the way that this thing takes shape around Cam Ward, the 2025 number one overall pick, because of course it's all being done in service of Cam's success, as it should be.
But the bigger takeaway from today was about Robert Saleh, and so that is where we are going to start.
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So we had the press conference today, and there were a number of different subjects broached.
The, the way that the press conference started, the tone of it, was piggybacking off of last year's.
Maybe you don't remember last year's Titans training camp opening press conference.
Maybe you've put the 2025 Titans so far out of your mind that you don't wanna ever think about them again.
They can't hurt you anymore.
It's done.
It's over with.
Just give me all things 2026, and that's completely fair.
But the press conference started with a callback.
If you'll remember I don't think Brian Callahan was up there, now that I, now that I recall this more vividly in my memory.
But if I remember correctly, it was Mike Borgonzi in his first year as the GM, and Chad Brinker, the President of Football Operations, who has since been I know they didn't announce that he was fired, but he was fired, and that's, And I'm not, you know, I'm not happy for that.
I'm not sad for that.
I'm not preying on the man's downfall.
I'm just saying that they optically made it look like something that it wasn't, which is the man got fired because he's just disposable, at this point in his tenure with the team.
Maybe he helped put them on the right track, maybe we'll never know the answer to that question.
But either way, Chad Brinker, out.
So at the press conference, Joe Dubin, Big Joe on the Go, who I love very much and whose sense of humor always thrills me, is at this press conference, not today's, but last year, and he asks of both of these gentlemen, at the time Brinker and Borgonzi, "Can this team win the Super Bowl?"
Brinker laughs, right?
Laughs and then kind of looks nervously over at Borgonzi.
Borgonzi's stone-faced.
He's not, he's not taking this, he's not taking this lightly at all by any stretch of the imagination.
And so Brinker, Brinker looks a little foolish in, in light of the question, because he's laughing off if an NFL team can compete for a Super Bowl, which is no laughing matter to people who are fans of the NFL team, to people who cover the NFL team, to the people on the NFL team, the roster, the coaches, all these different things.
"What do you mean we're not here to compete?"
And he laughed it off, which is probably the right way to handle that question, the more accurate way to handle that question, because the Titans roster last year was laughable.
We did not know yet, maybe some people did, but I don't think it was common knowledge at that point, how could it be, that Brian Callahan and the way that his tenure would go, the former Titans coach who was since fired six weeks into his second season on the job, that Brian Callahan's tenure would also be a bit of a joke as far as how that went, and that's brings us to today.
How much different a year feels when you're talking about adults in the room.
And I, I wanna make sure that I'm clear on this, all right?
Brian Callahan's not a bad person.
I don't think he's a bad football coach.
I think he was a bad head coach in his first opportunity, and it was so spectacularly bad, made worse by organizational dysfunction, years and years of bad drafting.
In the same way that many people would not have had a chance, that Cam Ward wasn't gonna be able to do anything with the three with, with that Titans team last year, I don't think Brian Callahan was gonna be able to do much either, no matter how good or bad he ended up being.
He ended up being catastrophically bad.
There's an argument to be made he's the worst coach that the Titans have ever had, given the circumstances around him, and that's something that he'll have to wear for the rest of his career, just as Robert Saleh has to wear the fact that he's the failed Jets coach, and never had a record better than seven, seven and 10, and never made the postseason despite, the tenure that he had- In New York, he's learned a lot.
He says he's learned a lot from the way that that experience went down and that he has changed a lot about how the Titans organization will operate in his purview.
For Robert Salas purposes, going from Callahan and what Callahan was trying to do, which in theory I understood, but it doesn't matter if it didn't connect with the players, and it didn't connect with the players.
What Brian Callahan tried to do was be NFL Ted Lasso.
And NFL Ted Lasso, while I have not seen the show, I understand the concept of a football coach with a great attitude and who is overwhelmingly positive in the way that he approaches adversity and all these different things being dropped into a situation where he really doesn't belong, right?
In the case of Ted Lasso, it was a soccer team.
He's a football coach coaching a soccer team.
I understand the premise.
Callahan reminded me a lot of the Ted Lasso character where I understood what he was trying to get accomplished.
But unlike Ted Lasso, there was not that level of connectivity between he, his staff, and the men that he was tasked with coaching.
It just never clicked in the way that it should have or in the way that it was supposed to in his head, right?
Maybe it was never going to work.
Robert Sala comes in here as a person with head coaching experience matters infinitely.
A person with head coaching experience in dysfunctional places, Jets meet Titans.
They're not, the Jets are not as, or rather the Titans are not as bad as the Jets.
But in the last couple of years, I mean, they're in the category, right?
It's them, Raiders, Browns, Jets, the Giants included in that mix.
The dregs of the league, the Titans have been one of them these last three years, let's say.
And so Robert Sala coming in here, understanding where he failed, surrounding himself with experienced people, people who have done his job, Brian Dable, Gus Bradley, even Bones Fossil on an interim basis, all with a deep knowledge and understanding of both the league, their respective areas of expertise, and also what it is to be an NFL head coach, what it is to connect with a variety, a diversity, a ecosystem as diverse as an NFL locker.
Because you got dudes of all different shapes, sizes, ethnicities, races, creeds, religions, what have you, all in the same place, working to one goal in all 32 markets in the league.
I don't know that Sala's going to be better.
I almost am certain that Sala can't be worse, but I've said that before.
I do think that the things that they have put with Robert Sala, the combination of what the Titans will be with this new staff, including Robert Sala, who of course has the oversight of being the head coach, should, should, should equip this franchise on the field for meaningful success in year one.
What is meaningful success defined by?
Well, that's a conversation that we can have closer to the season.
But I am fascinated to see how players take to the new approach to training camp.
Sala said it's going to be as tough a training camp as any that they have, any that his players or that the players who are on this roster have faced in their respective careers.
I'm curious to see how Brian Dable and Robert Sala and Cam Ward and Gus Bradley and Bones Fossil and Jeff Simmons and all these different things find ways to coalesce as we work through the process of training camp.
Because training camp, even in its toned down state, its collectively bargained toned down state, is still a grueling, difficult, arduous, long process.
It's hot.
It's miserable.
It's tough.
You're being screamed at.
There's so many, and listen, everybody's got adversity in their jobs.
Maybe not all of us have physical adversity to quite that extent, mental adversity to quite that extent.
But we all face adversity in our jobs.
This is the toughest time of year to be an NFL player.
Truly it is.
Because there's no glory in training camp, right?
There's no adulation in training camp.
It's just about the grind.
It is the toughest part of the NFL calendar from a player's perspective.
I say this as somebody who has not played, but who's covered players across the course of 11 seasons.
Whoa.
Hate saying that number out loud.
Hate saying 11 seasons.
Not hate saying 11 seasons as in I hate that I'm doing this for 11 seasons.
I hate saying 11 seasons because it makes me feel old.
And I like that.
Anyway, what is not old is the Titans.
The Titans are very much brand new on a number of different fronts.
And so we will spend the next couple of days, the next couple of weeks, the next couple of almost months talking about the process of what it is to form the 2026 Tennessee Titans, whether they are successful, whether they fail.
Of course, all of these things will be documented along the way.
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Carnell Tate will be the first guest on the radio show, the number four overall pick in this year's draft.
The wide receiver who hopes to become a wide receiver one under this Titans administration.
So Carnell Tate will start us off and we will have conversations with Titans players and Titans coaches and Titans brass every day for the next two months.
And we're looking forward to having you along for that ride.
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Will be a great time had by all.
