Call it a bit of an arranged marriage — but one the Tennessee Titans believe will work well.
New Titans general manager Ran Carthon said Friday in his introductory news conference that he had only met head coach Mike Vrabel for the first time Tuesday when he was hired to be the club’s 14th GM.
“Tuesday was the first time I had met Mike in person,” Carthon said. “In 2005, I was a bottom of the roster player for the Colts, so I was inactive in the 2005 Colts-Patriots game in which Mike played. I was inactive and didn’t get to meet him then. My father, (former NFL player and coach Maurice Carthon) who is here, was on the staff in 2009 and 2010 with the Kansas City Chiefs, where Mike finished (playing). I never had a relationship with Mike, but I’ve always respected him. He’s a football coach, and it permeates from him off the screen (on TV).”
Carthon is walking into a situation in which the Titans have plenty of hard decisions to make, ranging from their salary cap issues and roster holes on the offensive line and receiver to their overall offensive scheme and whether the team needs its current problems patched versus a complete rebuild.
In his brief study of the club’s roster, Carthon said the Titans are competitive and good.
But he said his goal in taking the reins is to make the team great.
“This is a competitive team, and we can win football games. But at the end of the year, you evaluate your roster every year, and you’re always looking for ways to improve that, and so that’s what we’re gonna do here,” Carthon said. “Although I feel the team is competitive, and we’re good, the objective is not to be good. The objective is to be great. So we’re going to continue to work to build a great roster every year. You can always take it to a new height, so that’s our approach.”
One of those decisions in achieving that goal is what to do at quarterback, where Ryan Tannehill is under contract for $27 million with a $36 million cap hit for 2023. Carthon dodged that question Friday, saying it was far too early to assess the Titans' quarterback situation.
“I don’t think that’s fair. At this point, we’re still evaluating the roster. I am. It’s going to take further conversations with me and Mike,” Carthon said. “Ryan has been great here. He’s won a lot of football games, and I look forward to us winning football, but I still need more time to evaluate and make those decisions. This is a quarterback-driven league, and people are hired and fired every day over that position. I want to spend more time evaluating that position, so I’ll have my own opinion, and Mike and I will confer and figure it out.”
At his season-ending news conference, Vrabel endorsed Tannehill as the team’s starting quarterback.
Carthon was asked what his top priorities are as the new GM, and he stated his job is to give Vrabel the most competitive roster top to bottom that he can in order to win games.
“I think Mike Vrabel is at the top of my to-do list, and us working together and forging a relationship and coming up with a plan on how to build this roster,” Carthon said. “I think there are a multitude of things that we need to do, things we need to fix and make better, but my No. 1 priority is spending more time with Mike Vrabel and learning the systems that are here in place and how I can improve them, which will help us build a championship team.”
While Carthon would not say whether he or Vrabel have final say over the roster, emphasizing that their roles will be a “collaborative” effort, Vrabel said his initial impressions of his new partner in team-building feels like a solid fit.
“The conversations that I had with Ran that ran countless hours, it would seem they lasted 15 minutes. That was a really good indication of where our comfort level was with each other. I’m extremely excited. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’re excited to get to work on that,” Vrabel said.
Carthon added, “The best way I’ve seen it done is when the head coach and the GM are in lock step. My job, and our jobs as scouts, is to execute Mike’s and his coaching staff’s vision.”
In coming from the San Francisco 49ers, where he spent the past two seasons as director of player personnel, Carthon had a hand in the club’s strong roster that has been able to not only overcome injuries, but also build a roster that has been deep and strong top to bottom. As examples, Pro Bowl tight end George Kittle was a fifth-round pick, and seventh-round rookie QB Brock Purdy is leading the team into the divisional round of the playoffs this weekend.
Carthon used that as a selling point in his interview with the Titans hierarchy.
“That was one of the things I touched on as well in my interview. It goes back to the word collaboration. That fifth, sixth, seventh round is the work of the scouts, and it’s the work of the assistant coaches, those guys spending time together,” Carthon said. “The scheme and finding depth level players that fit our roster and help fill out the bottom of our roster. So those are the area where you start to use more of your staff. Us being able in San Francisco to hit on those picks was totally a collaboration of our assistant coaches and our scouts.”
Carthon added, "What jumps out is how hard and how tough this team plays and how this team has been made in the image of our head coach. Mike is a tough guy. He works hard. I think the team is built in his image and what Mike believes in. Our core foundation of football comes from the same tree, and I believe in those.”
Vrabel voiced the same view when asked about the situation.
“Our job is to get it right. Our job is to hire great people, hire the best people at what they do. Find the best and most diverse staff and let them do their jobs, manage them, lead them, push them. He has to do that in personnel and I have to do that in coaching, and then we have to bring it all together,” Vrabel said.