The Titans made arguably the move of the offseason last month, coming out of seemingly nowhere to sign Jaguars' star wide reciever Calvin Ridley. While most were expecting Ridley to either re-sign with Jacksonville or head to New England, Tennessee flew under the radar for most of the process and eventually landed him on a four-year, $92 million deal.
The move was – to put it mildly – a bit of a shock, which is generally how free agency goes now that everyone gets real time updates on Twitter. In fact, even Titans' owner Amy Adams Strunk found out by scrolling on her phone. While talking to the media on Tuesday during L'Jarius Sneed's introductory press conference, Titans' GM Ran Carthon shed some light on how the Ridley deal went down:
From pipe dream to reality, GM Ran Carthon on how the Titans landed @CalvinRidley1 and the ensuing chaos 😂 pic.twitter.com/iyy5L4Oeg2
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) April 2, 2024
"So we're high-fiving, and bro-hugging, and doing all of that, and we were like, 'Hey, let's get Calvin on the phone,'" Carthon said. "Let's congratulate him. So this is literally all happening within 90 seconds. We call Calvin, we're FaceTiming him, and we're excited, he's excited. And then my phone beeps, and it's Miss Amy. And I pick up the phone and am like, 'Hello?' and she's like, 'Is this true?! ... Did we just get Calvin Ridley?' And I was like, 'What the hell? Is this out already? We're on the phone with him right now congratulating him that we got this done.'"
Twitter: ruining everything for everyone, even in the NFL, for almost 10 years now. And I imagine that sometimes (most of the time?) it's best to leave the owner out of things and just tell them who to make the check out to, but it's always fun to learn that even the people at the highest level of the NFL are just as in the loop as we are.