Well, that didn’t take long.
Only two years after he was fired mid-season by the New York Jets, sporting a 20-36 record as a head coach, Robert Saleh will get his second chance to spearhead an NFL franchise.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Saleh is finalizing a deal with the Tennessee Titans to become their next head coach.
Saleh attracted interest from a number of teams. He was scheduled to meet with the Arizona Cardinals had he left Tennessee without a deal, but it appears that the Titans are intent on sealing the deal with the former 49ers defensive coordinator.
After being fired by the Jets in October 2024, Saleh joined the Green Bay Packers’ staff as an offensive consultant to close out the 2024 season. In 2025, he rejoined the San Francisco 49ers as their defensive coordinator, the same role he held from 2017-20 under head coach Kyle Shanahan.
Saleh did a phenomenal job with San Francisco’s defense in 2025. Despite his unit dealing with an unfathomable onslaught of injuries, including the losses of All-Pros Fred Warner and Nick Bosa, Saleh managed to lead the 49ers to 13th-best in points per game allowed (21.8).
The cherry on top was a road shutdown of the defending-champion Philadelphia Eagles in the wild card round. Saleh’s defense held the Eagles to 307 total yards and 19 points as San Francisco pulled off the 23-19 road upset.
The roof caved in for San Francisco in the divisional round, as the Seattle Seahawks cruised to a 41-6 win, but Saleh had already proven to teams around the league that he deserves a second chance as a head coach. While other NFL teams around the league used injuries and a lack of talent to excuse their poor defensive production, Saleh found creative ways to field a respectable, playoff-caliber unit.
With 10 head coaching vacancies around the league, it would have been surprising if Saleh did not land a job after the work he did in 2025. Tennessee turned out to be the team that wanted him the most.
Saleh will try to turn around a Titans organization that has missed the playoffs in four consecutive seasons, posting a record of 19-49 over that span. His primary job is to get the most out of quarterback Cam Ward, the first overall pick of the 2025 draft.
Figuring out the quarterback position was the bane of Saleh’s Jets tenure. He failed to develop second-overall choice Zach Wilson and took a huge swing-and-miss on Aaron Rodgers. Amidst the struggles and injuries of Wilson and Rodgers, Saleh and his staff struggled to find competent backup plans at the position, save for sporadic heroics from Mike White.
The Jets are scheduled to travel to Tennessee and take on the Titans in 2026. Ironically, Saleh’s last road victory as the Jets’ head coach came in Nashville, when the Jets picked up a 24-17 win in Week 2 of the 2024 season.
However, that was only Saleh’s ninth road victory in three-plus years as the Jets’ head coach. The Titans are hoping he has learned enough over the past year to do a little better than that in Tennessee, as they will have their work cut out for them in an AFC South division that featured two teams with 12+ wins in 2025.
