As Tennessee Titans finally give Ran Carthon an honest chance, we all should, too | Estes

The Tennessee Titans confirmed their already well-documented coaching hire of Brian Callahan early Wednesday, but that wasn’t the morning's real news.

They did what they’d spent the past year not doing.

They presented Ran Carthon as a bona fide NFL general manager.

While announcing Callahan’s hire, Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk revealed that she had promoted Carthon to executive vice president and given him control of all football-related matters: The roster, the draft, free agency, the coaching staff. All of it. Callahan will coach under Carthon.

Something that would be standard for most pro sports organizations felt like a watershed moment for the Titans and Adams Strunk, who spent all of 2023 declining to say publicly who had the final say about the team's roster. Though she hired Carthon a year ago, she didn’t truly allow him the authority to do the job until now. And (gasp) she told everyone about the decision, too!

The Titans, who will formally introduce Callahan on Thursday, have had a rough time of it lately, but it has been encouraging to see them getting their house in order.

A solid coaching hire is made. A true GM is in place. Some transparency, too, about the inner workings of the team and Adams Strunk's vision to modernize the Titans to where they'll no longer scoff about things like charts and numbers and analytics as tools to help win.

“This is not my father’s NFL," she said in Wednesday's statement. “As our league continues to evolve in areas like analytics, sports science, and technology, football organizations have become more complex and multifaceted. I want our football operation to be at the forefront of the NFL as teams continue to find new competitive advantages."

As for Carthon, Adams Strunk cited his “innovative approach to roster building” and “exceptional reputation around the league as a talent evaluator and culture builder” as reasons to hand him the same set of keys that Jon Robinson once held.

The Titans are finally giving Carthon an honest chance, and the rest of us should, too.

Truth is, we’ve little idea what to expect from him as the Titans’ GM.

We haven’t seen him do it yet.

Has any GM one year into a job been more of a mystery? Carthon spent the past year mostly in the background. In the rare instances in which he has spoken publicly, he has gone out of his way not to reveal much. We don’t know what he wants for the Titans — because he hasn't told us.

He spoke initially of former coach Mike Vrabel’s preference as his own. Then after Vrabel’s firing, he deferred in the same way to Adams Strunk, declining to offer specifics about her vision or his own as the team's GM.

Carthon’s obfuscation in media settings has been maddening, and I hope it improves for his sake. He often has come across as a GM who is in over his head, and I don’t believe that’s the case.

Adams Strunk has confidence in Carthon to do this job, or else she wouldn’t be giving it to him.

But you can’t blame anyone for being skeptical of her effusive praise for Carthon when she wouldn’t let him be the Titans' true GM until now.

Estes: Whatever may come of Brian Callahan, he's who Tennessee Titans truly wanted

The failure of this past season, more than any other shortcoming, was that no one could say who was really in charge. A tumultuous 2023 reflected poorly on both Vrabel and Carthon, but really, it was on Adams Strunk to fix her ill-fated attempt to blend old and new. In trying to placate both Vrabel and Carthon, she accomplished neither, and the franchise suffered for it.

Hindsight shows how difficult the circumstances have been thus far in Tennessee for Carthon. He had to figure out how to work alongside Vrabel after Adams Strunk went against her coach’s recommendation in hiring Carthon over Ryan Cowden, which multiple sources cited as a turning point in the relationship between the Titans’ former coach and owner.

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And after she fired Vrabel on Jan. 9, Adams Strunk’s refusal to field questions from independent media meant that Carthon was forced to muddle alone through an unsatisfactory news conference in which he was far more fixated on what he couldn’t say than what he could.

It was a shaky performance at an unfortunate time, inspiring zero confidence in the Titans’ direction and leadership on a pivotal day in their history.

For Carthon, yes, it was a tough spot. But it won’t be the last time. It is the type of issue that NFL general managers must confront, and there will be no more defending Carthon because of a lack of experience.

The training wheels are gone. He’s in charge now. He’s got the owner’s public backing. He’s got the coach he wanted in Callahan. He'll have the optimism and fresh approach that a solid coaching hire will bring to a building that needs those things.

He’s got top deputy Chad Brinker settling into a nice promotion. He’s got a high first-round draft pick. He’s got a ton of salary-cap space.

And he’s got a Titans roster that’ll need a lot of help between now and the next game.

For a while, I've been told all these wonderful things about Ran Carthon, and I haven't yet gotten to meet that person. I'm eager to get to know him and see what he can do for the Titans.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: A year later, Tennessee Titans finally make Ran Carthon the true GM