NFL coach and broadcaster Dave McGinnis dies at 74 after illness

Dave McGinnis, the longtime NFL coach known around the league as Coach Mac, died Monday at 74 after an illness that kept him in a Nashville hospital since March 4. His career tied together Chicago, Arizona and Tennessee in a way few football lifers ever manage, moving from the sideline to the booth while mentoring players who shaped multiple eras of the league.

The Tennessee Titans said McGinnis was visited in his final days by friends, colleagues, former players and coaches, who came by the hospital and listened to recorded voice messages for him. Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk said her heart ached with the loss of a man who was “much more than a coach and broadcaster,” while president and CEO Burke Nihill said he knew of few people more made for a football life than McGinnis. Jeff Fisher, who worked with McGinnis in Tennessee and had known him for 40 years, was among those who reflected on the depth of that bond.

McGinnis spent 13 years coaching in college before entering the NFL in 1986, when he joined the Chicago Bears as linebackers coach. He stayed there through 1995 and helped coach Mike Singletary, one of the eight Hall of Famers the Titans said McGinnis worked with during his career. In 1999, Chicago had prepared to introduce him as its 12th head coach, but he never agreed to a contract and the move collapsed, clearing the way for Dick Jauron the next day. It was one of the league’s more unusual near-hire episodes, and a reminder of how close McGinnis came to leading one of football’s most watched franchises.

Arizona became the next major chapter. McGinnis first served nearly five seasons as defensive coordinator before becoming head coach from 2000 to 2003, when the Cardinals went 17-40. His 2003 team finished 4-12 and he was fired, even as rookie receiver Anquan Boldin won AP Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. In Arizona, he also coached Hall of Famers Emmitt Smith and Aeneas Williams, and he worked with Pat Tillman before Tillman left football to enlist in the Army and was killed in Afghanistan in 2004.

McGinnis also mattered off the field. He was part of Arizona’s door-to-door push for Proposition 302 in 2000, the vote that created the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority and ultimately led to State Farm Stadium, completed in August 2006 after the Cardinals moved out of Sun Devil Stadium. In Tennessee, he later returned as assistant head coach and, beginning in 2017, became a Titans Radio color analyst, a role he held through the 2025 season. Michael Bidwill said Arizona was deeply saddened by his death, praising his passion, enthusiasm, charisma and love for the game and his players.