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Who's in charge of Titans coach search? It'll be up to 'vote,' says GM Ran Carthon

The Tennessee Titans are getting a new coach.

What kind of coach are they looking for? General manager Ran Carthon won't say.

"I promise you at a given time when we’re up here introducing the next head coach, I’ll go into that," he said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, just hours after Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk fired coach Mike Vrabel. "But I think right now I think it’s best to keep that tight amongst ourselves as we go through that process."

Carthon wasn't much in the business of defining visions Tuesday. He repeatedly said it wasn't the proper occasion to explain what Adams Strunk's vision for the franchise is or why Vrabel didn't align with that vision. But there is a defined vision, he said.

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Yet for whatever reason, Carthon doesn't want to let media or fans in on what the Titans are looking for or building toward until after Vrabel's successor has been named.

"I think as we go through this process, we need to make sure we have the right person aligned with that and then the why we hired that person will fit with that vision," he said.

Carthon said he, Adams Strunk and "others" will be involved in the hiring process, and there will be "areas" where he will take a more "out front approach" in the search.

He said there are candidates he has in mind whom he has relationships with, and he wants to be able to run an "unbiased process," and that will require more people to be involved.

As for who has final say on who will be hired, Carthon said: "It's a vote." There is no specific number of candidates, and everyone in the room will be able to express their opinions. Then they'll "listen to each other and figure out who's best."

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He was quick to make a distinction between the idea of hiring a coach for the team and hiring a coach for the organization. If Adams Strunk's goal is for the head coach, front office and ownership to collaborate and be more aligned with one another, Carthon indicated the goal should be to hire someone who can fit that model.

By contrast, he doesn't seem to believe there is much of a problem with the team side of things. He said the Titans need to figure out why their players get injured at such a high rate. He said injury luck and in-game situational bad luck are two of the main reasons the Titans aren't in the playoffs right now.

Based on everything he said, Carthon also doesn't believe the Titans have a people problem. He's complimentary of the players. He said he has spoken to every assistant coach individually and will give the new head coach the option to retain as many as he sees fit. Any time the Titans play, he said, the goal will be to win.

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Carthon just doesn't want to say how the Titans plan to do that.

"I think at the right moment we’ll define that vision," he said. "That’s going to come when we hire our next head coach and we’ll give you guys a more detailed description at that time."

Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Titans won't say what they're looking for in Mike Vrabel's successor