NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Titans fired general manager Ran Carthon on Tuesday after finishing 3-14 this season and earning the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft.
"It's impossible to ignore that our football team hasn't improved over the past two years," Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk said in a statement released by the team. "I am deeply disappointed in our poor win-loss record during this period."
The Titans said Brian Callahan will continue as the head coach and that 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 told the team's website. "This particular job, what we'll be looking for is someone who has spent their career as a scout, is a top-flight, top-level evaluator who has spent the majority of their career projecting college players to the National Football League, they've had a major hand in setting the draft board in preferably a consistent, winning organization, and you can see their fingerprints all over the roster."
Team president and CEO Burke Nihill told the team's website that while the new GM will oversee the day-to-day roster decisions, Brinker will have "final authority" on the roster.
"It is important to Amy to have absolute clarity in the football organization." Nihill told the team's website. "And so, while the general manager position will have a primary responsibility on all these things Chad is describing in terms of the day-to-day of overseeing the roster and the coaching staff, Chad is the leader of the football program, so Chad will be the final authority on all football matters, including the roster."
Nihill noted that Carthon was hired when they had a different description for the general manager job from what the franchise wants now. The Titans want a GM who partners closely with the existing head coach.
Colorado 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, posting, "Wow!"
Carthon was hired as the franchise's first Black general manager in 2023 after the Titans fired previous GM Jon Robinson midway through the season. Tennessee lost seven consecutive games and fell out of 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 following 13 seasons with Green Bay.
The Titans went 6-11 in Carthon's first season. Strunk fired previous coach Mike Vrabel and empowered Carthon to lead their 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. Over the past two years, Tennessee has a 9-25 record.
"He was a first-time head coach, and a first-time playcaller," Brinker told the team's website about Callahan. "There are some challenges as a first-time head coach, like building a culture, assessing current and future talent, establishing trust and communication, building a high-level staff, creating an alignment from the coaching to the front office to ownership. On top of that, he was a first-time playcaller and first-time head coach.
"Brian was one of the hottest candidates last year on the market, and we believe in Brian, and we want to give him the opportunity to grow into the head coach that we think he can be. He knows, and we've talked about it, that it wasn't good enough this year. And I think Brian is really self-reflective in that regard, and he understands that he has to be better, and his staff has to be better. And, quite frankly, we all have to be better, including me. We want to give Brian that opportunity to continue to grow. It just takes time to build a program."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.