Browsing: Brian

The Tennessee Titans fired head coach Brian Callahan on Monday and installed and promoted senior offensive assistant Mike McCoy to interim head coach, though the team has begun the process of identifying a successor.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported Sunday, “Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the latest search is in the ‘beginning stages.’ No outside search firm will be used. Instead, the search will be led by president of football operations Chad Brinker and general manager Mike Borgonzi. The team intends to conduct, we’re told, an extremely calculated process.”

McCoy’s first crack at interim duties didn’t go terribly well, as the Titans lost 31-13 to the New England Patriots on Sunday, dropping to 1-6 this season. He was 27-37 in his time coaching the then-San Diego Chargers between 2013-16.

“What Mike brings right now is experience, leadership,” Borgonzi told reporters last week. “He has been a head coach. He’s a former quarterback who’s had some years in the NFL as a player and has been around NFL quarterbacks like Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning, and he was with Trevor Lawrence last year.”

His “résumé” as a head coach was certainly better than Callahan’s, who went 4-19 in parts of two seasons leading the Titans.

“We just felt like this was the right time to make a change,” Brinker told reporters after Callahan was fired. “We were looking for growth in this football team, and that’s what this is about right now. We’re not seeing enough growth from this football team.”

The Titans will be an interesting job opening. On one hand, they have an intriguing young quarterback in Cam Ward, the top overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft. He’s shown flashes of brilliance but has also suffered from bouts of inconsistency, throwing for 1,356 yards, four touchdowns and five interceptions in seven games, completing just 57.6 percent of his passes.

But the Titans haven’t surrounded him with much talent, and it’s very clear the organization is in the very early stages of a full rebuild. Getting the most out of Ward—who is enduring a rough rookie season and already experiencing a midseason coaching change—will be the top priority for the team’s next head coach.

Given the lack of talent elsewhere, however, it won’t be the sexiest opening for high-profile candidates.

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Brian Pillman was one of the most unique acts in WWE when he sadly died after a heart attack caused by previously undetected heart disease. Following his passing, WWE had a controversial interview segment between Vince McMahon and Pillman’s widow, Melanie, that was aired on television, which many felt was awfully distasteful at the time. However, according to John Bradshaw Layfield, there was method to McMahon’s madness at the time.

“I don’t see how you can possibly say no to this,” JBL said during an episode of “Something To Wrestle” after it was brought up that Melanie had requested to do the interview about her husband. “You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. If you don’t put her on there, and years later you find out the widow wanted to come on, why didn’t you have her on? Because she wasn’t a draw? People are gonna bash Vince for that.”

“There’s no right answer to this. Vince is a standup guy, and he was willing to sa,y ‘Okay, I did it, I made the decision. If you want to shoot arrows at somebody, shoot them at me.’ And a lot of people did,” JBL added, noting that if he were actually in McMahon’s position at that time, he would’ve also done the same thing that the then-WWE Chairman did. “Are you gonna tell the family themselves, ‘We don’t want you to do a eulogy on television’? Then you’re gonna look like the biggest jerk in the world!”

JBL claims he had a feeling that Brian Pillman was dead before the news of his passing broke

WWE.com

John Bradshaw Layfield also claimed that he was actually with Pillman the night before he passed away. “Brian and I were pretty good friends – I’d say good friends – and I’d always joked with him about something, a little personal joke, and he always kinda laughed and snickered at it,” he recalled, noting that the night before, he joked with Pillman again but the late wrestler snapped at him for the first time. “At the time I thought: that’s strange, that’s not like Brian? Brian was a really nice guy.”

Additionally, JBL told a story about a night between him and Pillman when the two were drinking where he found out that his friend was in a lot of pain all the time. “I said ‘Are you in pain?’ he goes, ‘Every step I take, every step I take hurts.’ He was in a tremendous amount of pain,” he recalled. “Later he didn’t make the show in Saint Louis, and I remember thinking right away back to the fact that it was different that he snapped at me and thinking ‘I don’t think Brian’s with us anymore.'”

JBL further claimed that he was saddened by the news of Pillman’s passing but not surprised, as he knew the late wrestler was a professional and wouldn’t no-show an event.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “Something To Wrestle” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

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LSU football endured a disappointing 31-24 road loss to No. 17 Vanderbilt on Saturday, with Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia accounting for 246 yards (160 passing, 86 rushing) and three scores (one passing, two rushing).

This is another tough blow in the tenure of fourth-year head coach Brian Kelly, who left Notre Dame for LSU late in 2021 and signed a 10-year, $95 million contract with the Tigers. Per USAToday, the buyout for Kelly’s contract is $53.3 million.

LSU football’s season started with great promise as the No. 9 team in the Associated Press preseason poll, and it only got better after a 17-10 win at No. 4 Clemson.

The Tigers then rolled off three straight wins to move to 4-0 and up to fourth in the AP poll.

However, it’s been tough sledding ever since, with the possibility of the 2025 campaign getting worse before it gets better.

LSU lost 24-19 at Ole Miss in a game the Tigers never led in the final 35 minutes. The Tigers then scratched and clawed their way to a 20-10 win over a South Carolina team that’s currently 3-4 overall (1-4 in the SEC).

Now LSU has lost again, this time at No. 17 Vanderbilt. Once again, LSU played from behind and trailed for the last 35 minutes.

A look ahead at the schedule reveals more potential pitfalls. LSU will host No. 4 Texas A&M and then enjoy a bye week before visiting No. 6 Alabama. The Tigers should then be heavy favorites over the next two weeks against Arkansas and Western Kentucky. Another tough game ends the ledger, though, at No. 14 Oklahoma.

Ultimately, LSU faces a significant uphill climb just to make the College Football Playoff after missing out last year in the first season of the 12-team field.

Simply put, Kelly’s tenure overall has left much to be desired.

Kelly took over a program that had gone 11-12 in its last two seasons under head coach Ed Orgeron. LSU immediately improved from 6-7 to 10-3 in year one under Kelly and even qualified for the SEC Championship Game, where the team fell to Georgia. However, the Tigers closed the year strong by beating Purdue 63-7 in the Citrus Bowl and finished 16th in the AP poll after not even being ranked to start 2022.

The 2023 team began the season as the No. 5 team in the nation. While LSU did amass another 10 wins, the Tigers went just 1-3 against ranked teams and notably allowed a combined 155 points in three losses to Florida State, Alabama and Ole Miss. A win against Wisconsin in the ReliaQuest Bowl closed the year.

In 2024, LSU started 13th in the AP poll, but this was a rough year for the Tigers, who again struggled against ranked opponents (1-3) and endured a three-game losing streak after a 6-1 start. They finished 9-4 but finished outside the AP poll entirely. A win against Baylor in the Texas Bowl closed the season.

Now 2025 is sailing in the wrong direction. The opening win against Clemson doesn’t look as good on paper now with the Tigers having their own struggles starting the year at 3-3 and falling out of the AP poll.

LSU now faces a pair of tough tasks against two SEC powerhouses. Wins against both of those schools could quiet any naysayers, but poor performances would only embolden critics as Kelly continues year four.

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The No. 10 LSU Tigers dropped a 31-24 road decision to the No. 17 Vanderbilt Commodores on Saturday, and their College Football Playoff hopes took a massive hit in the process.

With a 5-2 record overall and a 2-2 mark in the SEC, the Tigers will already be hard-pressed to reach the SEC Championship Game, and it is likely they will need to go undefeated the rest of the way to have any chance at the CFP.

Following a second loss in the past three games, LSU was trolled on social media by fans who dismissed the Tigers’ likelihood of reaching the playoff:

Not surprisingly, head coach Brian Kelly was the subject of criticism as well, especially given LSU’s defensive failures throughout Saturday’s contest.

LSU allowed 399 yards of total offense, 20 first downs and didn’t force a turnover. Additionally, Vandy won the time of possession battle 36:31-23:29.

On top of that, the Commodores scored points on six of their first eight drives, and the Tigers did not force a punt until the fourth quarter.

After such a listless defensive performance in a hugely important game, fans made their feelings known about Kelly with some even calling for his firing:

In the midst of his fourth season as the head coach at LSU, Kelly has yet to win more than 10 games in a season, win an SEC title or qualify for the CFP.

Given that LSU has consistently been among the best and most talented teams in the SEC over the past couple of decades, the expectation every year is for them to vie for a conference title and a national championship.

That hasn’t been the case during the Kelly era, and barring a spectacular finish to the season that includes wins over No. 4 Texas A&M, No. 6 Alabama and No. 14 Oklahoma, LSU may be on the outside looking in once again.

While LSU is already essentially on the brink of CFP elimination, Vanderbilt is looking like a legitimate threat to make its first-ever CFP appearance.

Under head coach Clark Lea, the Commodores are 6-1 overall and 2-1 in the SEC, and Saturday’s win could push them into the top-10 conversation.

Perhaps the biggest reason for their success has been the play of quarterback Diego Pavia, who is a Heisman Trophy candidate.

LSU had no answers for Pavia’s dual-threat ability Saturday, as he threw for 160 yards and a touchdown, and rushed for another 86 yards and two scores.

Vandy looks to be for real, but it can prove that is the case even more over its next two games against No. 16 Missouri and No. 21 Texas.

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Sometimes a coaching change can energize a team and fanbase in the process.

At least one member of the Tennessee Titans ticketing department is seemingly hoping that’s the case.

After the Titans announced Monday they fired head coach Brian Callahan, Paul Kuharsky shared a screenshot in which a ticket rep apparently reached out to a potential customer and said “You told me ‘I’m in if Brian Callahan is fired.'”

This isn’t the first time Kuharsky has relayed purported communication from the Titan’s ticketing department.Â

Earlier this month, he shared a screenshot in which a rep said the Titans’ “fan base is very happy.”

That came when Tennessee was 0-4 to start the 2025 campaign and drew a response from team vice president of communications and corporate affairs Kate Guerra that said, “we missed the mark in a big way. These comments have been addressed and we will do better.”Â

The Titans have since gotten their first win thanks to a victory over the Arizona Cardinals, but Sunday’s loss to the Las Vegas Raiders dropped their record to 1-5. The final score was 20-10, but the game wasn’t even that close since the Titans’ lone touchdown came with fewer than four minutes remaining when the game was already in hand.

Las Vegas is just 2-4 and was missing star tight end Brock Bowers, and the result was a clear indication of just how far away Tennessee is from being a contender in the AFC despite having Cam Ward under center as the potential franchise quarterback of the future.

Callahan was just 4-19 as the head coach, and the team decided it saw enough to make a change and ideally maximize Ward’s future with the right hire.

And maybe the Titans will sell some more tickets as well.

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The scuffle between Detroit Lions safety Brian Branch and Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster at the end of Kansas City’s 30-17 win on Sunday Night Football reportedly could draw disciplinary action from the NFL.

During an appearance on SportsCenter, ESPN’s Adam Schefter said the league will “absolutely” review the incident and could levy a suspension for those involved.

“This is exactly the type of situation that the NFL never wants to have. It never wants to have in a standalone game. It never wants it in a standalone game on a Sunday night. And yes, the league will review the incident. And I am told that determinations on discipline will be made,” Schefter said. “So, at the very least, there will be fines, certainly possible suspension. And we’ll see how this plays out through the course of the week. But I would think that we should get word later today or tomorrow.”

This article will be updated soon to provide more information and analysis.
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Things got chippy after the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Detroit Lions on Sunday night.

As time expired on the Chiefs’ 30-17 victory, Detroit’s Brian Branch walked toward Chiefs wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster and hit him in the head.

Things quickly escalated, and the two sides exchanged some shoves before finally going their separate ways.

Smith-Schuster was seen walking to the locker room with a towel over his nose after the altercation.

Before slapping Smith-Schuster, Branch brushed off a handshake with quarterback Patrick Mahomes. After the game, Mahomes said his teammates aren’t interested in keeping the battle going once the game ends.

“We play the game in between the whistles,” Mahomes said on the NBC broadcast. “They can do all the extracurricular stuff they want to do, but we play the game in between the whistles.”

Lions head coach Dan Campbell called Branch’s actions “inexcusable” and offered an apology to the Chiefs.

“I love Brian Branch, but what he did is inexcusable,” Campbell told reporters. “It’s not going to be accepted here. It’s not what we do, it’s not what we’re about. I apologize to Coach [Andy] Reid and the Chiefs and Smith-Schuster. That’s not okay, that’s not what we do here. It’s not going to be okay, he knows it, our team knows it.”

Things didn’t get too chippy between the Chiefs and Lions during the game, but it was a frustrating night for Detroit. Kansas City had one of its best performances of the season as Mahomes threw for 257 yards and three touchdowns, adding 32 rushing yards and a score on the ground.

It’s unclear whether Branch will face a fine or suspension, but Sunday wasn’t the first time the third-year safety has been involved in extracurriculars. Last season, he was ejected from a game against the Green Bay Packers for an illegal hit and was handed a fine for giving the crowd the middle finger on his way off the field. He was also fined for two separate hits against the Arizona Cardinals last year.

Branch, who earned his first Pro Bowl nod a season ago, has recorded 33 tackles and five passes defended through six games as the Lions have gone 4-2. Detroit will face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next week.

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Brian Cage is still on the road to recovery after tearing his quadriceps at an indie show earlier this year, but it sounds like even he doesnâ€t know whatâ€s waiting for him in AEW when he gets back.

In a new interview on The All Fâ€N Wrestling Show, Cage revealed he recently underwent knee surgery while rehabbing the quad tear and opened up about the uncertainty surrounding his return—and whether heâ€ll even be part of The Don Callis Family again. Cage admitted that he hasnâ€t been given any creative direction yet:

“I have no idea about any sort of creative plans for a return at all at this point. So, I mean, I guess anything could be possible.â€

He also gave some insight into the state of The Don Callis Family in his absence and joked that Callis may have taken things further than expected:

“Itâ€s funny too because I donâ€t think Don wanted that many people to begin with, and then I thought he kind of thought it was funny and was almost doing it comically, like making a joke about it, start adding people. And now itâ€s just like, now itâ€s over the fact that everyoneâ€s just joining The Don Callis Family.â€

With more wrestlers joining the faction, Cage said his own role is uncertain. He floated a few scenarios but made it clear nothing has been decided:

“Yeah, so I guess I come back and join him and be, you know, a super team. Or I donâ€t know why I would fight against him, though. Nothingâ€s happened, so Iâ€m not really sure whatâ€s going on… Thereâ€s a whole wide open versatility of what could happen, because thereâ€s nothing set in stone at all for when Iâ€m coming back or what Iâ€m going to do when I come back.â€

Cage remains one of AEWâ€s most physically dominant stars, and his eventual return could shake up whichever storyline heâ€s thrown into. But for now, it sounds like even The Machine is in the dark.

Do you want to see Brian Cage rejoin The Don Callis Family—or should he come back as a solo babyface? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.

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Sep 28, 2025, 02:24 PM ET

ATLANTA — Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker is unsure about his future with the Braves.

The 69-year-old Snitker, whose contract expires after this year, has been subjected to questions about whether he will retire following the season, his ninth as Atlanta’s manager and 49th with the organization.

The Braves are out of playoff contention for the first time since 2017. Snitker, who has been with the Braves organization in some capacity as a player, coach and manager since 1977, has been undecided about his retirement since he was asked about it for the first time this season on Sept. 10, when he said he was not “100% sure which direction I want to go.”

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Snitker still did not have his mind made up as of Sunday’s season finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“I’ve teetered on the fence (about retirement),” Snitker said. “I’ve never been through this before. I wasn’t sure how to navigate it. I’ve talked to a lot of people who have been through it who got some good advice. I’ve just tried to stay in the moment and focus on today … As we’re sitting here right now, I still feel good.”

Snitker said the club has not reached out to him about the future.

“It’s not their fault,” Snitker said. “I haven’t approached them. We’re (going to) talk this week (after the season). That’s kind of where I wanted it to go. That’s on me.”

Braves general manager and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said on Sept. 8 that Snitker will be a “Brave for life” but did not go into detail about the manager’s immediate future.

“(Snitker) will be part of this organization no matter what well past when I’m here,” Anthopoulos said. “He’s a Brave for life. (Coaching staff roles) are things we always address at the end of the year.”

Snitker, the 2021 World Series-winning manager, was encouraged by Atlanta’s play in the final month-plus of the season, which included a 10-game winning streak from Sept. 14 to Sept. 23.

“I think it’s been really encouraging,” Snitker said. “You just like to see what these guys do (as a whole). It’s been good how (those) guys have kept fighting.”

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After signing with the LA Kings in the off-season, defenseman Brian Dumoulin looks to be a solid, reliable defenseman for the Kings heading into the 2025-26 season.

Dumoulin is a veteran in the NHL, having played since 2013. Dumoulin is bringing lots of NHL experience to the Kings. Dumoulin is a two-time Stanley Cup champion, having won back-to-back Cups as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Since leaving the Penguins at the end of the 2023-24 season, Dumoulin has been on three different teams in three years: the Seattle Kraken, Anaheim Ducks, and New Jersey Devils. In the past offseason, the Kings signed Dumoulin to a 3-year, $4 million contract, which some fans were not the biggest fans of, as the contract ends when Dumoulin will be 37 years old.

Dumoulin played for the Devils and Ducks last season. During his time with the Ducks, he registered 2 goals, 14 assists for 16 points in 61 games. On the Devils, he would register 1 goal, 5 assists for 6 points in 19 games. While Dumoulin may be past his prime as he joins the Kings, he can still be that reliable defensive defenseman that the Kings may need to improve their depth.

According to PuckPedia, Dumoulin is on the 3rd pairing alongside Brandt Clarke. This pairing could be very beneficial for the young defenders, as Dumoulin is able to lead and teach them important aspects that he learned early in his career, thereby improving the Kings’ young defence as they age and improve. Dumoulin is also not listed on any of the Kings’ special teams, so for the start of the season, his playing time will be limited to the 3rd pair.

Heading into the 2025-26 season, many fans are skeptical of Dumoulin as his career high in points is only 25, and that was nearly 4 years ago. However, given that his style of play is primarily focused on his defensive abilities, scoring points is secondary for Dumoulin. The 34-year-old defender also has strong, reliable breakout capabilities, which the Kings could use for certain set plays to create quick counterattacks. I truly believe that with Dumoulin’s career high being at 25 points, if he remains healthy, he could set a new career high for his first season with the Kings. I would say that he gets around 25-30 points in his first season, all while proving he can still be a reliable defenseman.

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