NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Titans’ tumble has set off a new level of consternation about the team’s long-term direction.

The odds for a coaching or general manager change during the season are very small.

But if the Titans don't turn things around and they continue on this path and come close to matching the kind of season they had last year, serious changes could be in order after the season.

That’s where the team’s primary organizational structure flaw would come into play.

Steve Underwood came to Nashville during the offseason, recruited out of retirement by a five-pronged ownership group to lead an organization desperate for a leader atop the front office. He speaks for that ownership group.

He was named interim CEO and president on March 20 and three months later the team announced he would hold the posts through the 2015 season.

That’s been good on one level, providing stability and letting someone reorganize and grow a front office that was stuck in the 1990s.

Here’s the problem.

Underwood said the search for his replacement would kick off after the season.

If, in fact, the Titans are in position where they need to consider change at coach and/or GM, the new person who would be at the core of such a decision won’t be in place in time to make it.

Underwood shedding the interim tag and staying on for a few years would be best.

But if he’s determined to leave the franchise again in 2016, the process for finding his replacement needs to start sooner than after the season.

That would be awkward but not as awkward as the alternative may be.

If they stick with the current timetable, it seems to me that offers automatic job security for Whisenhunt and Webster for 2016.

If a new president/CEO isn’t hired until early in 2016, by the time he assesses the team he is taking over, even if he decides he needs new people, it’ll be far too late to make a change at coach and/or GM.

The competition for the top candidates out there will be over and a new top executive will be in line to experience the third year of Webster-Whisenhunt.