Titans losing shines light on internal strife

Losing at this rate, however, has plenty of Tennessee's non-player personnel in survival mode and it is doing an incredible disservice to the talent that is on the roster. 

ESPN's Turron Davenport published a piece this week on the nature of the relationship between Carthon and Vrabel. It comes a few days removed from unverified allegations by Greg Bedard of the Boston Sports Journal about the coach and GM's relationship, owner Amy Adams Strunk's hiring process and even Carthon's work ethic dating back to his time with the San Fransisco 49ers. 

Davenport's article was not meant to be a response to Bedard, but it timed out that way. What was curious was the response that the ESPN article caused.

Multiple sources with the Titans organization pushed back on some of the quotes Carthon provided to ESPN on the team's evaluation process. One section in particular drew the most critical commentary:

Having spent time helping construct the San Francisco 49ers' roster as the director of pro personnel from 2017 to 2020 and then director of player personnel from 2021 to 2022, Carthon saw first-hand how general manager John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan worked together with the scouts.

The way the scouts learned exactly what Shanahan wanted resonated with Carthon. He wanted to bring that process to Tennessee so he had coaches produce teaching tape using their terminology to get everyone on the same page.

Multiple team sources questioned the mere existence of these teach tapes with one adding, "If they do, I don't know where they are for us to see them."

It is worth noting that multiple Tennessee assistant coaches are on-record as saying that Carthon and others in the personnel department did put together video assets to show the staff what they were looking for at their respective positions this offseason. That something like that is even being disputed internally speaks to a different level of collaboration than is being portrayed. Carthon and Vrabel may end up working out well together, but the organizational alignment is not currently needs to be.

Sure, the Titans depth chart is littered with disappointment.

Carthon and Vrabel will spend several offseasons trying to put things back together again. Lasting together is something only they can go about figuring out how to accomplish. There is also the factor of individual agendas at play as the finger-pointing goes around. 

Such is life when an organization fires and hires a general manager while employing an incumbent head coach. 

Carthon's decision to keep many of former GM Jon Robinson's hires without extending their contracts puts the staff on notice. It is also far more generous an opportunity than many executives would offer to a group of people that they did not hire. Carthon is as much responsible for evaluating his front office structure as he is current and future Tennessee players.

External optics are one thing. Behind the scenes, there is plenty of work to be done.