Carthon Wants to Reload, Not Rebuild Titans

The new general manager believes in the brand of football Mike Vrabel coaches, will evaluate the roster for necessary changes ahead of the offseason.

NASHVILLE – Hired on Tuesday and introduced as the Tennessee Titans new general manager on Friday, Ran Carthon will take some time to evaluate the team’s roster before making big decisions.

But he gave the distinct impression that the Titans are more in a “reload” than “rebuild” situation.

The Titans had produced six straight winning seasons before 2022, earning playoff trips in three of the last four years and capturing the AFC’s No. 1 seed in 2021.

Then came 2022, when an injury-riddled and offensively challenged Titans team finished 7-10, losing its last seven games and failing to win the AFC South in the last game of the season.

Carthon, however, doesn’t sound as if he’s ready to blow it all up.

“This is a competitive team and we can win football games,” Carthon said. “But at the end of the year, you evaluate your roster and you’re always looking for ways to improve that. That’s what we’re going to do here.

“Although I feel like the team is competitive and we’re good, the objective is not to be good. The objective is to be great. So we’re going to continue to work to build a great roster. That’s going to be every year. So you can always take it to a new height. So that’s going to be our approach.”

One of Carthon’s biggest decisions this offseason will involve quarterback Ryan Tannehill, the Titans’ starter for the past four years.

Tannehill has served as a rock of stability and produced good numbers for the Titans, posting a 36-19 record as a starter. He’s thrown for nearly 13,000 yards here, totaling 89 touchdowns versus 33 interceptions while earning a 100.5 NFL quarterback rating.

But Tannehill will also turn 35 in July, and he is coming off an ankle injury that limited him to 12 games and necessitated surgery. His current salary-cap figure is a whopping $36.6 million. If the Titans were to make him a post-June 1 release, they would save $27 million under the cap – at a cost of $9.6 million dead money.

So the Titans’ options are to return Tannehill as is, try to restructure his contract, release him or try to find a trading partner for him.

“I don’t think that’s fair at this point,” Carthon said when asked if Tannehill was his starter in 2023. “We’re still evaluating the roster. I am, and that’s going to take further conversations with me and Mike (Vrabel) here. Ryan has been great here. He’s won a lot of football games and I look forward to us winning football games. But I still need more time to evaluate and make those decisions.

“As you know, this is a quarterback-driven league and people are hired and fired every day over that position. So we want to -- I want to -- spend more time evaluating that position so I have my own opinion, and Mike and I will confer and figure it out.”

Carthon will also have to evaluate whether the offense will continue to be centered around running back Derrick Henry, who bounced back from a 2021 foot injury to carry 349 times for 1,538 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2022, averaging 4.4 yards per carry. He added career highs of 33 receptions for 398 yards.

But can an offense focused on a running back win the Super Bowl when many other teams are throwing the football far more often?

“Yeah, (it can),” Carthon said. “I joke and I say it’s cute to play, you know, Golden State Warriors-football, in October and September. But when those conditions change and you can’t throw the ball up and down the yard, you better be able to run it. And you better be able to defend it.

“I think if you look at the teams that are in the playoffs that are still playing at this stage, everybody’s able to run the ball. So I think you can win championships that way.”

Carthon, who played his high school football in Florida and played collegiately at the University of Florida, said he’s been watching Henry since Henry played for Yulee High near Jacksonville, Fla.

A 6-0, 218-pound running back in his playing days, Carthon says he’s ready to get an up-close look at Henry.

“More than anything, I can’t wait to stand next to him and size him up,” Carthon said, “to see how big he really is in person.”