{"id":368217,"date":"2025-12-24T21:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368217\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:24:08","slug":"marcus-freeman-reportedly-eyed-by-titans-and-mystery-teams-amid-giants-nfl-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368217\/","title":{"rendered":"Marcus Freeman Reportedly Eyed by Titans and Mystery Teams amid Giants, NFL Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL interest in Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman extends beyond the New York Giants, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dianna Russini<\/a> of The Athletic reported on Dec. 13 that Freeman was on the Giants’ list of prospective candidates. <\/p>\n

Fowler followed up Wednesday to say the Tennessee Titans “have done their research, too.”<\/p>\n

“And so have a few teams that will either have an opening or potentially could have one,” he wrote. “No teams have officially requested to speak with Freeman as of the last time I checked, but if Freeman wants to at least explore the possibility of the NFL via conversations with teams, he will have opportunities to do that. Freeman will take the next few weeks to make that decision.”<\/p>\n

Freeman has a 43-12 record in four-plus seasons as the head coach at Notre Dame. He led the Fighting Irish for their final game in 2021 after Brian Kelly left for LSU and then took over full time.<\/p>\n

The 39-year-old didn’t log a single appearance in the NFL. The Chicago Bears selected him in the fifth round of the 2009 draft, and he retired in 2010 after a routine physical led to the discovery<\/a> of a heart condition.<\/p>\n

Freeman hasn’t coached in the pros, either. He started as a graduate assistant at Ohio State, his alma mater, and worked his way up to getting hired as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator in 2021 before succeeding Kelly.<\/p>\n

From that standpoint, Freeman isn’t a natural candidate to go from college to the NFL. He might nonetheless be enticed to leave behind the grind of an intense year-round workload, one that only got more demanding thanks to the transfer portal.<\/p>\n

The Titans, meanwhile, may be looking toward younger coaches when they’re in the midst of a major rebuild<\/a>. They’ve lost 10-plus games for four straight years, and general manager Mike Borgonzi has a lot of holes in the roster to address.<\/p>\n

The early returns on No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward are mixed as well. He has thrown for 2,866 yards, 13 touchdowns and seven interceptions, and he has been sacked 51 times.<\/p>\n

Ward’s development will be at the front of Borgonzi’s mind during the coaching search.<\/p>\n

Freeman is a former linebacker who specialized on the defensive side, but that wouldn’t preclude him from helping a young quarterback get to the next level.<\/p>\n

New York and Tennessee won’t kick their searches into gear until the regular season ends, and more vacancies are bound to open.<\/p>\n

That will help to solidify Freeman’s market and how likely it is he actually leaves South Bend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL interest in Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman extends beyond the New York Giants, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-368217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}