The Tennessee Titans, previously known as the Houston Oilers, are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. They are a member of the South division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The Tennessee Titans have had 18 head coaches in its franchise history. As the Houston Oilers based in Houston, Texas, the team began playing in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL). The Oilers won two AFL championships before joining the NFL as part of the AFL-NFL merger. The team relocated to Tennessee in 1997 and played in Memphis for one season before moving to Nashville. For two seasons, the team was known as the Tennessee Oilers before changing its name to the Titans in 1999.
The Titans are currently coached on an interim basis by Mike Mularkey. The former head coach was Mike Munchak, who was promoted from offensive line coach on February 7, 2011 following the departure of Jeff Fisher on January 27. Munchak had been almost continuously employed by the Oilers/Titans franchise since being drafted by the Oilers in 1982. He spent 13 seasons with the Oilers as an offensive guard, retiring in 1994, and eventually became the franchise's fifth player to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the first to have played only with that franchise. After a season out of football, he was hired by the Oilers as a quality control assistant in 1996 and promoted to offensive line coach in 1997, serving in that position until his 2011 promotion. Munchak's predecessor, Fisher, had been the longest-serving head coach in franchise history, coaching over twice as many games and nearly three times as many seasons as Bum Phillips. Fisher joined the Titans in 1994, when the team was called the Houston Oilers. At the time of his departure, Fisher had the longest tenure as head coach with one team among active head coaches in the NFL.Sid Gillman, who coached the Oilers from 1973 to 1974, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983, becoming the franchise's only coach to be enshrined in that role.Lou Rymkus has the highest winning percentage (.611) of any coach in franchise history (in Wally Lemm's first term as coach, he had 1.000 winning percentage, while his final record was .493). Rymkus was also the team's first coach, and held the position from 1960 to 1961. At .053, Bill Peterson has the lowest winning percentage. In 1961, after Rymkus left the Oilers, Wally Lemm coached the team and led it to nine straight victories and the 1961 AFL championship. Rymkus, Lemm, and Gillman have won the UPI AFL/NFL Coach of the Year award.