Titans part ways with three business executives, including head of rebrand, as team starts 0-4

The Tennessee Titans are cleaning out part of their business side in the middle of the season.

A team statement confirmed that Adam Nuse, senior vice president and chief revenue officer, Erin Swartz, senior vice president of brand marketing, and Charles Jensen, vice president of creative, are leaving the organization. The team described it as a restructuring.

The Titans said they will hire an executive vice president and chief business officer to oversee revenue, marketing and communications.

The rebrand executive

Swartz is the name that stands out. She helped lead the rebrand the Titans unveiled at a March 12 reveal party at The Pinnacle in Nashville, with quarterback Cam Ward and defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons on stage. It brought new logos, uniforms and lettering, plus a revised color scheme.

The redesign split the fanbase. The team's position is that the rebrand was a hit.

Paul Kuharsky, who has covered the Titans since 1996 and now writes independently, reports that Swartz sat down with the press hours before the rebrand went public to walk reporters through it. On Sept. 3, she was at a Nissan Stadium press event previewing the team's final season in the current building, showing off new merchandise in the team store.

The new stadium is close to opening. She oversaw the off-field project that Kuharsky ranks second only to the stadium itself, and she is gone six months later.

The New York Post also reports that Adolpho Birch is moving out of his legal leadership post and into a senior advisor role alongside ownership. The team's statement, as relayed to The Tennessean, did not address that move.

A pattern on the business side

Kuharsky reports that this is another round of departures on the business side, and he points at team president and CEO Burke Nihill. Nihill, he writes, has "never really addressed his trigger finger and the constant churn."

The only conversations Kuharsky says he has had with Nihill about the turnover were off the record, which he calls "unreasonable." Nihill declined an interview request through a spokesperson. Kuharsky says the Titans routinely limit who speaks for the organization.

Nihill is empowered to speak for owner Amy Adams Strunk. Kuharsky's headline says everyone in the building seems expendable except Nihill. That is his assessment, and the team has not responded to it publicly.

The defense is simple. The team calls this a restructuring and says it will hire a single executive to run revenue, marketing and communications. Organizations reorganize leadership ahead of a major stadium opening, and no one has said the three departures are tied to any single result or decision.

The on-field backdrop

The timing is awkward because the football product is not helping the business side.

Tennessee is 0-4. It has had four consecutive losing seasons and is tracking toward a fifth. The Titans host the also-winless Houston Texans on Sunday.

Cam Ward, the No. 1 overall pick a year and a half ago, is 3-18 in 21 NFL starts with 18 touchdown passes and nine interceptions.

Head coach Robert Saleh, formerly of the Jets, is still looking for his first win in Tennessee. Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, fired as Giants head coach last season, has an offense averaging 13.8 points per game through four weeks. That ranks 31st in the NFL.

The front-office moves do not touch any of that. Nuse sold the product. Swartz and Jensen dressed it. Neither group calls plays or throws interceptions.

What comes next

The immediate question is who gets the new chief business officer job. The Titans have not named a candidate or a timeline. Whoever gets it will inherit a revenue operation built around a new stadium, with the team on pace for another losing season.

The larger question is Nihill's. Kuharsky says he has not publicly explained the repeated turnover under him. The Titans have not said whether he will address it after Sunday's game.