Collaboration was the buzzword last year, and while cooperation will still be important for the Tennessee Titans, everyone finally has clear and defined roles within the organization.
On Wednesday the Tennessee Titans announced that they officially hired Brian Callahan to be the team's next head coach. However, that wasn't the end of the announcement.
In an attempt to clearly lay out the vision for the franchise before the introductory press conference on Thursday, the Tennessee Titans also announced that Ran Carthon and Chad Brinker have new titles and responsibilities.
Newly minted GM/Executive Vice President, Ran Carthon, will be in charge of the coaching staff (with heavy input from Callahan presumably), player acquisition, roster decisions, sports medicine, and player engagement.
Chad Brinker will handle the analytics department and salary cap management as the team's new President of Football Operations.
Carthon has been adamant in the past that he doesn't like for one person to be attached to roster control because he believes that it is an "ego thing", but for the past year, it has been less about ego and more about finding who to blame. Whether he wanted it or not, it seems like he is going to be the one whose name is attached to everyone added to the roster from here on out, like Jon Robinson was before him.
However, Carthon isn't going to go rogue and bring in people who aren't going to mesh with the coaching staff. He also isn't going to draft or sign a player without making sure they are a scheme fit for the Tennessee Titans coaching staff.
With the team finally allowed to go in a more modern direction offensively (specifically the increased emphasis on the passing game) it will be interesting to see if Carthon and Callahan attempt to go after more dynamic offensive players for the first time in a decade.
Tennessee Titans shining a light on Chad Brinker
It will also be interesting to see what Brinker can and will do this offseason with the team's salary cap.
This should be a massive offseason for the Tennessee Titans and they should be looking to add elite players and depth pieces to the roster. With more money to spend than anyone else in the NFL, will the Titans still creatively use void years to give them more spending power next year? Will they try to trade someone with a prohibitive cap hit and then work on restructuring their contract once they get to Tennessee?
The good news is that no matter what the Tennessee Titans do, we know who is responsible for what moves and that is more than we could say last year. Preaching accountability is fine when no one knows what you are supposed to be doing, but with titles and job descriptions attached to people on the staff, there will actually be accountability with this staff.