The Titans locker room is sending a crystal clear message about interim head coach Mike McCoy

The Tennessee Titans fell in lifeless, embarrassing fashion to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 13 by a score of 25-3. They played all the hits: incompetent offense, bizarre play calling decisions, backbreaking cracks in the defense after being hung out to dry, and the topic of this article, conservative nonsense from interim head coach Mike McCoy.

Whatever you think of the timing of the Titans' decision to fire Brian Callahan after six weeks this year, there is no debating this part: they made a big fat mistake making senior offensive advisor Mike McCoy the interim. He has been the opposite of everything an interim is supposed to be. And with more than a month left to play, the Titans' locker room is beginning to show signs of being out on their replacement coach.

The Titans locker room is showing serious signs of fracture under Mike McCoy

Here's another thing you cannot say about Brian Callahan during his short time with the team this season: there were never any signs of his roster giving up on him. And this is a big part of the argument against firing him when they did. It rarely does a team much good to fire a coach mid-season unless they are actively and directly harming the team, or unless they lose the locker room. I'm sure some will argue that he did the former, and to them I ask: what supposed great harm has disappeared since his dismissal?

I mention none of this to grumble over what feels like ancient history at this point, but rather to emphasize my own philosophy on dismissing coaches in-season. That's the baseline we need in order to talk about Mike McCoy today, who the Titans will not fire before the end of the season. I wrote all about that linked here. But that educated opinion could be brought into question quickly if the locker room publicly turns on him. On Sunday, we saw the first signs of them cracking.

QB Cam Ward was asked at his postgame presser about Mike McCoy's decision to kick the short field goal on the opening drive, and he didn't hold back on his disagreement. "Yeah, we need to go for it, I believe. What do we have to lose?" That's not the kind of thing many QBs would openly say to cameras about a decision their head coach made without being fed up with a difference in philosophy. Tennessee had marched 70 yards down the field to the Jaguars' 10 yard line, and they've been getting beaten by double digits all season long. If McCoy isn't thinking touchdowns instead of field goals at this point, I'm not sure what will compel him to shift that line of thinking.

When asked if he talked to or has talked in the past to coach McCoy about these things, he said "I talk about it really all the time. He knows my mindset as a quarterback. I want go for it every chance, especially now with what our record displays. And we just got to continue to be the aggressive team."

Well, they aren't going to be the aggressive team as long as Mike "McCoward" (as the internet has now loudly and affectionately deemed him) is in charge. He seems to coach without much of a guiding priciple. He leans ultra conservative, until he suddenly doesn't. There isn't a through-line of process you can follow. And if there is one hidden deep within his decision-making, Lord knows he won't ever be willing to expand upon it in any meaningful way at the podium.