The Tennessee Titansfired general manager Ran Carthon on Tuesday after finishing the season with a 3-14 record, which led them to earn the first overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, ESPN reported.
“It’s impossible to ignore that our team has not progressed over the last two years,” said Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk in a statement. “I am deeply disappointed by our poor record of wins and losses over this period.”
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Brian Callahan remains head coach
The Titans also reported that head coach Brian Callahan will remain in charge of the team, and that the president of football operations, Chad Brinker, will lead the search for the franchise’s next general manager.
“I think the general manager position is unique to their respective organizations,” Brinker said. “For this particular job, what we’re going to be looking for is someone who has spent their career as a scout, is a top-notch evaluator who has spent most of their career projecting college players to the NFL.
“They’ve had an important role in shaping the draft board in a preferably consistent and winning organization, and you can see their fingerprints all over the roster,” he added.
Team president and CEO Burke Nihill said that while the new general manager will oversee day-to-day roster decisions, Brinker will have “final authority” over the team.
“It’s important for Amy to have absolute clarity in the organization,” Nihill explained. “And so while the general manager position will have primary responsibility for all these things that Chad describes in terms of the day-to-day of overseeing the roster and the coaching staff, Chad is the leader of the football program, so he will be the final authority on all game matters, including the roster.”
Nihill noted Carthon was hired when they had a different description for the general manager position than the franchise wants now. The Titans want a general manager who will work closely with the current head coach.
Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders, whose son Shedeur Sanders will likely be under consideration when the Titans select first overall in April, reacted to the Titans’ announcement on X and posted: “Wow!”
Carthon’s brief stint in Tennessee
Carthon was hired as the franchise’s first general manager of color in 2023 after the Titans fired Jon Robinson midway through the season. Tennessee lost seven straight games and missed the playoffs.
Carthon was promoted to executive vice president in addition to his general manager title last year. That’s when the Titans promoted Brinker to president of football operations, a new position for Tennessee after he was hired in February 2023, after spending 13 seasons with Green Bay.
The Titans went 6-11 in Carthon’s first season. Strunk fired former coach Mike Vrabel and authorized Carthon to lead the search for the next coach, which ended up being Callahan.
Callahan’s first season (3-14) was the worst for the team since 2015, when it finished 3-13. In the last two years, Tennessee has a 9-25 record.
