A lot has been made about the Tennessee Titans new General Manager opening. But now, the NFL has made an official ruling on the position that is a huge win for the team.
When Ran Carthon was fired, the Titans new GM job was described in a strange way. President of Football Operations Chad Brinker now has final say over all roster moves, and the next Titans GM will be purely involved in personnel and scouting. They’ll be “all ball, all day” as described by Brinker himself. They’ll have no involvement in any other traditionally GM-related operations oversight.
So with no final say on the roster, and no other oversight, is the Titans new GM opening even a real GM opportunity?
The NFL has reviewed the position and decided that it is.
Per Jonathan Jones on X Thursday night, the NFL has gone over the position and deemed it “the primary football executive post” within the Titans organization.
This is a big deal for the Titans in their GM search, because had the NFL come to a different conclusion, it would have cut their candidate list in half [HALF]. The way the NFL poaching rules work, you cannot interview an individual from another team for a lateral career move without permission from their current employer.
For example: if the Titans wanted to interview Colts Assistant GM Ed Dodds for their own Assistant GM opening, they would have to get the Colts permission to interview him. And the Colts would be well within their rights to block that interview, which they would do if they had any reason to want to retain him. If the Titans wanted to interview him for their main GM job, they could do so as long as Dodds himself accepts the interview request. They don’t have to get any consent from the Colts for that.
And in this instance, the Titans do want to interview Dodds. They requested him to interview earlier this week. But Dodds, as well as other interview requests in his position, wouldn’t be able to accept the interview on their own accord unless the league ruled the position the main GM job instead of an assistant/secondary position.
Luckily for the Titans, the league did exactly that. So now, their only obstacle in getting their pick of a new GM is the candidates viewing their opening as the “real GM” position that the league has deemed it to be.