New Titans General Manager Ran Carthon doesn’t know head coach Mike Vrabel, but he knows they want the same thing, and he believes they’re going to get there together.
Carthon told the Tennessean that he and Vrabel had never met until two weeks after he was hired as the new GM, but that’s not going to be a problem.
“I just met Mike two Tuesdays ago,” Carthon said. “But my dad, Mike’s last two years in Kansas City, my dad [Maurice Carthon] was an assistant head coach on that staff. So I think Mike knows my DNA and the cloth I’m cut from. But more than anything, our football foundation is rooted from the same tree. We see the game similarly. So that allows us to have conversations ahead of where two guys who just met would generally start.”
Carthon said he and Vrabel have similar traits they look for in players.
“I think Mike said it — we want big, physical, tough guys,” Carthon said. “Fast guys. Instinctive guys. But from a non-physical standpoint, we want passionate guys that love football. That live, eat and breathe it. We know who Mike Vrabel is. He checked all the boxes of what we’re looking for in who he is, not only as a player but as a man. We want players that mimic that.”
Carthon said he doesn’t see himself and Vrabel butting heads about issues like final cutdowns before the 53-man roster limit.
“Let’s be real, it can’t work if we’re not on the same page,” Carthon said. “The question has come up of who has control over the 53, and I forever say that does not matter. Because at the end of the day, Mike is the football coach. Mike is the architect of the offensive system, the defensive system, the special teams system. So I have to learn and know what these systems are and what’s required in these systems, and then my staff and I have to go about finding players who fit that system. It’s going to take a collaborative effort. I’ve never seen it work where [a GM and coach] are on two different pages. We’re building a team, we’re not just collecting talent.”
Last offseason, Vrabel insisted that the Titans wouldn’t trade wide receiver A.J. Brown, only to have former GM Jon Robinson trade him. That didn’t turn out well for the Titans, and Robinson was fired. This year, Carthon wants to make sure he and Vrabel are in complete agreement.
