INDIANAPOLIS — It might have been easy for Bill Callahan to fast-track his son Brian's NFL coaching career. But together they agreed that Brian should take the first steps on his own. Eighteen years later, they are reunited with the Tennessee Titans — Brian in charge, dad Bill coaching the offensive line.
"Early on in my career, when I was first starting out, he had made a very pointed emphasis that I should try my own way and not work for him," Callahan said Tuesday at the NFL Combine. "He never wanted to be one to give me a job. He felt like it would serve me better if I had went my own direction and earned my way through it. I think that was the best advice he's probably given me. It's worked out great that way."
Brian's odyssey went like this:
- graduate assistant, UCLA, 2006-2007;
- assistant coach, Junipero Serra High School, San Mateo, Calif., 2008-2009;
- assistant coach, Denver Broncos, 2010-2015;
- quarterbacks coach, Detroit Lions, 2016-2017;
- quarterbacks coach, Oakland Raiders, 2018;
- offensive coordinator, Cincinnati Bengals, 2019-2023.
Now, as an NFL head coach for the first time with the Titans, Brian has hired his father as an assistant. This is no nepotism hire — though Brian loves having a morning coffee with his dad every day — because Bill Callahan is universally hailed as one of the great teachers of offensive line play.
"I never knew if it was going to work. We had a conversation really the year previous when I was interviewing for a couple of jobs and he had said that we wouldn't work together, that he was very happy where he was at, and didn't really want to leave, and felt like I should do that on my own," Callahan said. "But it just timed up great. It's kind of where he's at in his career."
While they have separate residences, the father and son regularly drive to work together and get to spend more time with each other than they have in decades.
"It's been great,": Brian Callahan said Tuesday. "Him and I get along really well. There's not a whole lot of bossing around, if you will. There's not many people that are going to tell him how to do his job. He's about as good at it as anybody.
"So, it's been really fun for me. It's been a dream come true to be able to sit and to have a cup of coffee with my dad in the morning and talk about what we got coming up that day and talk about pass protection and technique and watch him do his job."
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