Tennessee Titans GM Ran Carthon continues to do the right things

It is hard not to be impressed with what Ran Carthon has done in his short time with the Tennessee Titans.

I’m not talking about the personnel decisions, because those moves were always coming regardless of who was in charge. What is impressive is the way he has handled the intrigue of being a GM.

One of the things that potential GMs can’t properly train for when they are working their way up to the top, is how they are supposed to deal with the media. While the NFL Scouting Combine is mainly about the prospects in the upcoming draft, it is also the first time that new GMs get exposed to the national media on a broad and somewhat unregulated scale.

In that setting, Carthon has managed to maintain his poise and keep teams guessing about what the Tennessee Titans’ intentions will be this offseason.

What ARE the Tennessee Titans intentions this offseason?

Every indication from anyone employed by the Tennessee Titans is that this team wants to reload this offseason, not rebuild. The expectation in that building is that they can get back on track and win the AFC South again with the right moves.

However, Ran Carthon hasn’t guaranteed that the 2023 Titans will include Ryan Tannehill or Derrick Henry.

He has also kept his answers ambiguous about whether the Tennessee Titans might consider a trade up or a trade back in the 2023 NFL Draft and he constantly deflects and probe about how he wants to build this roster back to comments made by Mike Vrabel.

In a little over a week, we are going to start getting a better idea of what the Tennessee Titans think about this upcoming season based on how they attack free agency and the trade market. However, he has done a great job so far keeping everything close to the vest and making it hard to predict where the Titans will strike first.

Another thing that has stood out about Carthon is the praise that continues to be heaped on him by people he has worked with in the past. It is one thing to read the team write an article about former coworkers who have had good impressions of him in the past. It is another thing entirely when guys like Mike McDaniel (who Carthon worked with two years ago) and DeMeco Ryans (who he worked with last year) provide anecdotes about him doing his job well.

There are reasons to be hesitant to be all-in on Carthon, but that happens with any job. There is always a projection that you have to make when someone is hired to a big job like this and no one is a guaranteed hit, however, Carthon continues to seem more and more like a culture fit and someone who is going to do a great job building a collaborative and successful front office with the Tennessee Titans.