NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Chad Brinker helped hire Brian Callahan.
So why doesn’t the Titans president of football operations, a role that was just created last year, simply become the team’s general manager as the team moves on after firing Ran Carthon Tuesday? He and Callahan would certainly be aligned.
Brinker said things have developed and are simply too big in an NFL front office now for one person to take on everything anymore.

“We need a general manager,” he said. “The general manager of the 1990s is not what is now. This thing has grown, It is huge. There are a lot of different things going on. But at the heart of it all is the player acquisition and the coaching, yes. This is a very, very important job just like the head coach, These are the two key positions in the football program.”
I didnt arrive at a clear understanding of why Brinker doesn't want the key front office position in the football program.
The primary responsibilities of the general manager, per Brinker:
- Oversees the coaching staff
- Oversees the personnel staff
- Free-agency strategy
- Draft strategy
- Integrating coaching into the scouting process
“This is a real general manager job,” he said. But again when I pressed him he added the caveat. “But I’ve got final authority on all football-related manners.”
The Titans seem a bit put off as to why that caveat creates so much of a question.
And perhaps Brinker, a new GM and Callahan will successfully reach a lot of consensus and Brinker won’t have to use that authority much.
Still, it’s unconventional, certainly in Nashville, where GMs have traditionally had outright personnel power. And in announcing the change Amy Adams Strunk and Nihill didn;t just come out and say, “Well, things are different now.”
Does that then make it an unattractive job for candidates who desire a traditional GM job with drafting and free-agent signing power, where only owner approval would be needed?
The Titans will begin to submit permission requests on Tuesday evening. Brinker said he’s been getting a lot of inquiries.
“This is an attractive job for a lot of people and particularly for those who grew up in this industry the way that I have,” Brinker said. “Who kind of cut their teeth as a scout and projecting players from college to pro and they just want to get up and focus on building a roster and not have to worry about running the video department, or an analytics team or the equipment room or whatever.
“Just all they want to do is scout, go out on the road in the fall and find football players. Because we’ve got to get it right. We have to get good football players in this building, we have to get playmakers in this building, particularly at positions that influence the outcomes of games. We’ve got to get to a point where we have seven difference-makers or impact starters on our team.”