Tennessee is 0-4. On Tuesday the Titans dismissed three executives: senior vice president and chief revenue officer Adam Nuse, senior vice president of brand marketing Erin Swartz, who led the 2026 logo and uniform rebrand, and vice president of creative Charles Jensen.
Not one of them coaches, scouts or signs a player. Adolpho Birch, who had been senior vice president and chief legal affairs officer, was not fired; he moved to senior advisor to ownership.
Then the Confidential Memo Went Everywhere
President and CEO Burke Nihill sent an internal memo explaining the restructuring. It included a line asking staff to “please keep internal updates like this confidential and do not share them outside the organization.”
Within hours Titans reporter Paul Kuharsky had obtained it and published it, and Mike Sando posted it too. A memo instructing employees not to leak became the most widely circulated document the franchise produced this week. Nobody has named who leaked it, and nobody needs to. An organization where that happens on the same day has a trust problem that no reorganization chart addresses.
The Football Side Is the Part That Is 0-4
Here is the arithmetic ownership is choosing not to engage with. Tennessee is 6-32 since firing Mike Vrabel after the 2023 season. Head coach Robert Saleh, hired in January 2026, has yet to win a game. Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll’s offense ranks 31st at 13.8 points per game. Cam Ward, the first overall pick in 2025, is in year two of being asked to survive it.
General manager Mike Borgonzi was hired in January 2025 and given final say on the 53-man roster this past January. Chad Brinker stepped down as president of football operations in April, two days after the draft. This is the third wave of churn in nine months and the first two were on the football side.
Why the Business Side, Why Now
Because of the building. The $2.2 billion new Nissan Stadium opens next year and is set to host Super Bowl LXIV in 2030. Selling premium inventory in a new venue is the single largest revenue event in franchise history, and it is being planned for a team that cannot win a game.
That is the charitable reading: controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk is making sure the people responsible for selling the stadium are people she believes can sell a bad football team. The less charitable reading is that firing marketing executives in October is the cheapest available form of visible accountability.
The Verdict
Take the less charitable one. A 0-4 team with a 31st-ranked offense fired nobody who touches the offense. There is no reporting that Saleh or Borgonzi is in jeopardy, and no statement from Strunk, Borgonzi or Saleh about the firings at all.
Tennessee fans are being asked to believe that the problem with this franchise lives in the brand department. The leaked memo is the organization accidentally telling the truth about how convincing that is.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.