The Tennessee Titans are now caught up in the lawsuit that alleges NFL franchises conduct interviews with minority candidates with no intention to hire those candidates as head coaches.
Ray Horton, the Titans’ defensive coordinator in 2014-15, is one of two coaches who joined the lawsuit this offseason by former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores. Horton was interviewed to be the Titans’ head coach in 2016, but the team elected to sign Mike Mularkey. In fact, it was he who publicly admitted more than a year and a half ago that the decision was made before the interviews took place.
That admission came from a Steelers Realm podcast in 2020 when Mularkey said that controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk made him aware the team planned to conduct what he said was effectively a “fake hiring process.”
“I allowed myself at one point when I was in Tennessee to get caught up in something I regret it and I still regret it,” Mularkey said on the Steelers Realm podcast.
“But the ownership there, Amy Adams Strunk and her family, came in and told me I was going be the head coach in 2016 before they went through the Rooney Rule.”
The Titans didn’t waste any time releasing a statement on the allegations. The team said it ran an “open and competitive” head coaching search.
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“Our 2016 head coach search was an open and competitive process during which we conducted in-person interviews with four candidates and followed all NFL rules,” the Titans told ESPN. “The organization was undecided on its next head coach during the process and made its final decision after consideration of all four candidates following the completion of the interviews.”
Mularkey was named interim head coach for the final nine games of 2015 after Ken Whisenhunt was fired and then had the job for two seasons and got fired and replaced by Mike Vrabel.
The Titans are one of six NFL franchises that never has had a minority head coach or general manager.
