Mike Vrabel didn’t know Ran Carthon when the Titans hired the former 49ers executive as their new General Manager last January. The arranged marriage didn’t last even a full year.
Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk fired the head coach on Tuesday.
“These things are ultimately Mrs. Amy’s decisions,” Carthon said, via Nubyjas Wilborn of All Titans. “Organizationally structured, we both [reported] to her. It was about Amy’s long-term vision of what she wants the organization to be and how she wants to move this organization forward.”
But Carthon and Vrabel’s relationship was the subject of speculation for months, with the two seemingly an ill fit.
Carthon denied there was a rift between he and Vrabel.
‘I know there’s been a lot of speculation over the last two, three months, or whatever it’s been, about the nature of Mike and I’s relationship. I will say that Mike and I have never had any issue regarding whether it’s personal or professional,” Carthon said. “We worked well together and had a good relationship.
“We were in lockstep, so I want to finally come out and dispel that, and I wish Vrabes nothing but the best. I consider him a friend and I feel that we’ll be that way moving forward.”
At his introductory news conference, Carthon repeatedly talked about building a collaborative relationship with Vrabel. Carthon said Tuesday they did that.
“We worked well together. We got along,” Carton said. “I feel like our collaboration was fine. In that given time, when I said I wanted to serve Mike and serve his coaching staff, that’s going to be the philosophy moving forward. No matter who our next head coach is and who our coaching staff is, our job in personnel is to serve them and to provide them with players that they want to coach, and that fit their scheme. I think that’s the nature of the position.”
