Mike Mularkey revealed he was promised the head coaching job of the Tennessee Titans in 2016 before the franchise fulfilled its Rooney Rule obligations. The Titans effectively delayed an official announcement and interviewed minority coaches even though they had no chance of getting the job.

“I allowed myself, at one point, when I was in Tennessee, to get caught up in something that I regret,” Mularkey said on the Steelers Realm Podcast. “I still regret it. The ownership there, Amy Adams Strunk and her family, came in and told me I was going to be the head coach in 2016 before they went through the Rooney Rule. And so I sat there knowing I was the head coach in ’16, as they went through this fake hiring process knowing a lot of the coaches that they were interviewing, knowing how much they prepared to go through those interviews, knowing that everything they could do and they had no chance to go that job. And actually, the GM Jon Robinson, he was in an interview with me. He had no idea why he is interviewing me, that I have a job already. I regret it. . . . and I’ve regretted that since then. It was the wrong thing to do and I’m sorry I did that, but it was not the way to do that. Should have been interviewed like everybody else and got hired because of the interview, not early on. So that’s probably my biggest regret. . . . It’s not hard to do the right thing. It’s really not. But you can get caught up in this business.”

The podcast is from 2020 but didn't receive much attention at the time, but it has now come up in Ray Horton's lawsuit.