 This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau Health Plans. Plan on paying less for the coverage you need with Farm Bureau Health Plans. Get a quote today at FBHP.com. With Amy Wells, I'm Mike Keith and we are at the 2024 NFL Combine in Indianapolis. Joined by Titans General Manager, Ran Karthon. Ran Karthon, what have you already been doing since you arrived in Indianapolis? A lot of walking. No, we hit the ground running. Got in town yesterday about 5.30, or about 5 and got to the hotel about 5.30 and went straight into interviews. First interview was at 7.20 and we went until 10.40 last night. There's a lot going on at the Scouting Combine and what everybody talks about in this media room is the workouts. But for you, Ran Karthon, you are most excited about what part of the combine. We're actually meeting these guys, right? Because we've seen them move around. We watched the tape. We saw them at All-Star Games and there are a lot of guys we saw in the fall. Whether it was myself or A-Rob or our other scouts, we've seen guys in the fall. But now you get your hands on them. Now you get to actually meet them as people. And that's the part I love the most and really enjoyed meeting the group of D-Lyman that we had last night. Ran, a lot of teams take this week very differently in terms of just coming in, being here for 8 days and just basically hunkering down. How do the Titans do it now? What can you share about that? We do it the same way. But again, we put a real emphasis on the interview portion. Because you've got to understand for the underclassmen, this is your first time really being able to get your hands on them and get that exposure to them. Some of the seniors, if you're at All-Star Games, you get to have your same meeting time. But for these underclassmen, it's our first time getting our hands on them. And then for Callie and I, this is our first time really being able to spend some time with some of these seniors as well. So that's a real important part for us and making sure that the way we drive the interview, we're not spending so much time on, hey, tell us about where you're from and how you grew up. Because those things, we only get 20 minutes. And so those things can take up the first 10 and then you can't get to the question that you really need to answer. So we rely on our scouts to have already have that laid out where they're from, what type of parent structure they grew up in. But now we can get right into the important parts of what we really want to know. This time last year you were a new general manager and things were coming at you really fast. Now you've had a year with the Scouting Department, with this group of people. How has that impacted the way that you're able to approach things with the prospects when you're doing those interviews that maybe you weren't able to do last year because there was a lot going on? I think we have a better understanding of each other. I think they know me a little bit better that they don't have to, you know, if you will tiptoe around, you know, me being the new guy last year and kind of, you know, it's always that transition when you go from one regime to another and you're worried about your job security. So, you know, I think there's a level of comfort there. I know our guys very well. I know their strengths and their weaknesses and so we play off of each other that way. I just think as a group we have more unison now. Rand Karthon, how much that you find out during the NFL Combine will be a factor in who comes in for the 30 visits that you have to Ascension St. Thomas Sports Park which start actually on March the 5th? No, it's a big part of it. Actually this morning, probably at about 5.30 this morning, I shot a rob of text saying, based off our interviews last night, is there anybody we want to get ahead of, spend more time with, we felt like we needed a little bit more time with to just kind of generate that list throughout the week as we go. So we can jump ahead and get ahead of getting guys in. And so that's part of it and then you're only allowed 45 back in the day, it used to be 60. So are there some guys that were on... Talking about the number of visits. Well, the number of interviews. Interviews, yes. And so who are our 15 that we would have looked, because I asked the guys to still put 60 together. And so who are our 15 that didn't quite make it that we know we definitely want to get in for a visit and let's get ahead of it and jump those guys in early when we get back. As you're going through this week, the combine obviously is happening and you're working on the draft, but free agency is also right around the corner. How are you balancing the two things and knowing that you've got a draft on the way, but you've also got some other roster moves that can be coming up. So the way we structured it, we did things, we did it a myriad of ways in San Francisco where we would have free agency meetings first and then we have college meetings last and so what I want to do this year is let's get college meetings going and we have that process and then we went free agency meetings last. So we have free agency meetings prior to coming here and because as soon as we leave here, we'll have another free agency meeting with the coaches and then the actual quote unquote tampering window starts. And so that'll keep us in that mind frame as we're moving forward. The tampering window actually begins on March the 11th for the OT people to know and free agency begins at three o'clock on Wednesday, March the 13th. Rankarthon, you have talked so much about football character in the off season as you build for it. As you talk about that in the free agency meetings and you get into that here in Indianapolis with the interviews, how much can you find out how much players love football, that football character part of it? Well you know in the pros it's a little bit harder because they're not in your building, they don't live with you every day. So you rely a little bit on what they were in college when they came out. Now on the flip side of it, you may have a guy who is a quote unquote character guy coming out that may have cleaned up their acting over the last four or five years, whatever it is, they haven't had any issues. But that's a place where we rely on our resources and our contacts. We have a veteran group in our pro department with Brian Gardner and Kevin Turks and Brandon Taylor. These guys have been around a while. They have a really big roll of decks and so there's a lot of information that we can get to just in terms of whether it's injuries, whether it's how these guys practice, how they work on a day to day basis that gives us confidence in moving forward in free agency and bringing some guys in. How much of you and Brian Callahan had to have conversations to get on the same page about what those characteristics are, what those kind of indicators are of what makes a character guy a good person? Really a Tennessee Titan. Well it started from the interview process because that was a part of our line of questioning, was asking the coaches how much involvement have they had in personnel in terms of the scouting process and then what are things that are important factors to them. And so we asked those questions a part of it so we understood where his thought process was in terms of football character and we spent quite a bit of time together and so I think we're both on the same page and you can look at the way the coaching staff was built. The coaching staff was built in the same way that we're acquiring players. We want talented people in here but we want even better people that love the game of football and care about it. Last question, when you go before the media here in a few moments, the OT people will hear this after the fact but let's see how good you are. What do you think the media is going to want to know most about Derek Henry? I think my life is these last two draft cycles have I've got more Derek Henry questions and I've gotten questions about myself and fans around town when I see them that's the number one question like hey we're keeping Derek right? So that's the one I'm probably expecting the most and probably first. What are you going to tell the media about that? I mean what I've always told them we don't discuss family business in public and you know when the time is right for us to have conversations with his team we'll do that. Ladies and gentlemen, the most consistent man in America. Titan's Executive VP and General Manager Rancar thought thank you so much for your time on the OTP. No, no problem. SeatGeek is now the official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans whether you're buying or selling tickets to Titans games or any other live event in Nashville SeatGeek is the place to do it. SeatGeek the new official ticketing partner of the Tennessee Titans so Titans fans can Amy Wells and I are now pleased to be joined at the 2024 NFL Combine by Titan's head coach Brian Callahan. Is this overwhelming? No, no, it's not. It feels like all the combines feel. I just have to talk to more people. No, it's been great. It's been great. It's a short burst for us. I mean it's a three-day sprint for with meetings with people around the league with all the 60 players we have to interview and obviously with the media as well. So things I feel pretty prepared to do but there's a lot more of it. From a football standpoint, how does your role change from being the offensive coordinator in Cincinnati to being the head coach of the Titans at the Combine? I would say the biggest difference is I have to pay attention to defensive players now. I'm in all the interviews with all the defensive linemen last night and so it's just more more. There's just more things I have to pay attention to. Little more things involved like league wide. As far as new head coaching things, meetings you have to go to rules that come up. Just more things but that's probably the biggest difference is just the big picture of the whole team versus just me worrying about the offensive players. With such a bigger volume of just information that you need to ingest how much are you leaning on your staff that is still pretty newly assembled to kind of help you wade through all of the things that you have to be responsible for. Yeah, they're a huge part of the process and that's why I tried to hire as many good people as I could hire is that I know I'm going to need them in their roles and doing their jobs at a high level which that's the expectation and I think that we'll get that from them. Plus we got a whole scouting staff that really knows what they're doing and that part's really important when you have a coach and a scouting staff on the same page looking for the same players. Now you really feel like you have a good vision for what's to come and what players that fit our organization and ultimately I wouldn't be here to mention Tom Jones. Some of you guys have met Tom Jones but he's our chief of staff assistant to head coach and he keeps me going, keeps me organized and it would be really difficult to do all these things without his help too so he plays an important role for me. What is Brian Callaghan's most important question in the player interview sessions? I try to figure out where I can interject because the scouts know these players, they visit them, they've seen them in person, they've seen them at the All-Star Games. I try to find maybe something about their personality as I listen to them talk. Sometimes I just like to hear them talk about the scheme, you know where I can diagnose whether they really have a good grasp of what they're talking about in that particular element so try to make them get specific. I know these interviews can be a little hard, they can and rehearsed with all the training that goes into them for the players. You try to get them off their script a little bit and see if you can break down some of that preparation and see a little bit more about their detail, their attention to what they did in their scheme so sometimes I try to do that, see if I can break the rehearsal a little bit and get a little bit more underneath the hood if you will. You mentioned that you're taking in a lot more like league-wide information and more of that going on. You are not new to the national football league. This is a place that you are very familiar but are people approaching you different? Are the conversations that you're having as you're milling about being a little bit different? So far no. These are a lot of people that I've been around for a long time and so all of our jobs and teams have changed over years and most of those relationships with those people are pretty consistent that I have from this is my 15th combine so I feel pretty good about that. There's a lot of people here that I don't know which is a weird feeling where I've grown past all the guys I've come up with are all come up as well and so there's a group of people in the lower ranks that I used to know really well that I don't know the same way anymore so that's a little bit of a weird feeling I'm young but I'm old now all of a sudden so that part is a little bit different but as far as the people I see in the conversations that I have have been pretty consistent the way they usually are every year. Brian Callahan is this also an opportunity for you to get to know the Titans personnel staff better? It is. I've been sitting in the draft meetings I've sat in some of the free agency meetings we've done our profile tape as offensive defensive staff with our scouting staff and so I've gotten to see them a little bit but this is fun for me because they run the interviews in the interview room and to see the personalities these are the players that they've been scouting for for two and three years some of these guys and so you get a chance to really see them interact with the player and you get to hear their knowledge so that part's been fun I think we've got a really good scouting staff and it makes me excited about the types of players we can bring in with those guys leading the charge. Rain Kartham mentioned the schedules that you guys have had with draft meetings and free agency meetings and balancing the two in your head how do you keep everything straight because you're working on multiple I guess facets of the Titans roster. Yeah we had to make sure we got our new coaches through their evaluation process we wanted to see what they thought of our roster of our players what they deemed important as far as needs who fits what we're going to do all those conversations and then the next part is working in conjunction with free agency in the draft they work together because it's two different ways to acquire players and sometimes there might be more players in free agency on a particular side of the ball there might be more in the draft so you sort of work those two in conjunction to find how do you best fit fill and fit the players to your needs in your roster and so it's a fun process and they sort of work congruently you're working on both at the same time trying to figure out how do we get the best collection of players for this acquisition cycle. It's interesting that you mention all of the new coaches needing to evaluate the Titans roster and what they have because everybody has kind of different preferences different evaluations of what a player can do how are you bringing all of that together to get everybody on the same page because everybody is coming from such different perspectives well that's part of the reason why we've done these these profile tapes and these kind of position criteria is where we spell out exactly what we're looking for for how we want to play football and I think that's an important piece for the coaches to have their input for our scouting staff to hear all of the things that we look for and then they can start to look for the same things and use those as a guideline to what fits and so that was where the first thing the new staff did when they got in the building was as they're valid in the roster start to spell out what we're looking for in each position and what that looks like and some of it's physical measurables some of it's going to be more of there's both things there's the physical measurables and there's the character the make up the profile the person that matters as well so it was a detailed process that took a little bit of time but that was sort of the first major project those guys have and they walked in was to do that for Titans fans joining us for the OTP they may not know what you mean when you talk about profile tapes can you go further and be specific about what those are that you've been putting together yeah so for example let's say an outside linebacker in our system there'll be a measurable you know we we need between six three and six five and between two hundred fifty five and two hundred sixty five pounds and here's where here's the forty time but what really matters is the ten you know what here's the here's the threshold for what the ten yard time means and what what it should be either at or under and then there's the make up part what is what does it look like to play outside linebacker for us what's the the the physicality portion the toughness the football intelligence the character of the person so there's this whole set of measureables and then even and with that by position then there's a roster construction piece and you're looking for you need one an on the ball Sam linebacker versus a rush outside linebacker which both end up rushing the passer but how does the construction of that room look like you need one elite player you can you can get by with two or three mix and match players how do we best build that room and so you know obviously you have these criteria that are everyone wants the best of all of it but then the next set of questions and then things we have to answer the scouting staff is what are you willing to where can we miss where what what part of the players is non-negotiable what what things do you have to have versus how can you how can you massage it when you don't have tj watt you know I mean that's that's that's the standard but what does it look like when you can't find him where you allowed to be flexible in those criteria so that's a really good exercise and it allows everyone to get on the same page it's like a recipe it is very much like a recipe putting together a recipe for a Super Bowl winning team yes that's the chance very interesting Mike Keith it is very interesting are you ever really willing to go outside of those parameters or is the goal to not go outside of those parameters when you draft based on those tapes the goal is to stay within those as best you can and I've given the example before if you look at the Baltimore Ravens right the Baltimore Ravens defensive line has looked the same for probably 20 years the numbers and names change but what they look like is very consistent over time that's because of Ozzie Newsom and Eric Tecosta and there's continuity consistency in what they look for and that's why they look the way they do year in and year out we try to get to that point there is always going to be a moment where there's a great football player that might not fit exactly what that is and the way that we always term it is what are they what's elite about them that isn't if it doesn't fit the profile what's elite that we can work with and that's generally how you you make exceptions you don't want to make too many exceptions because then you end up with a bunch of exceptions and now you don't look like the roster you want to look like so you're very careful and when those things come up but there's always an exception for an elite player that doesn't necessarily fit the profile so what you're saying is using outside linebackers pass rushers if Dwight Freeney is there and he he doesn't fit any of those measurable he's six feet tall he weighs 270 pounds and he's basically the Tasmanian devil yes is what it amounts to you would say yes but we would like to have Dwight Freeney on our football team correct that's probably the best way to put it there's going to be a trait or two that that makes them much more than just a profile and that's when you're willing to to make an exception to that to that criteria that you're looking for and but you just you got to be mindful you can't do it you know all the time because then all of a sudden you end up now you're small and you don't have the physicality and all those things so there's there's a there's a bendable process and you just got to make sure it's you're still sticking to what you're looking for most of the time as you're constructing this team are you excited about all of the options that you have given that this team has a lot of cap room and a high draft pick yeah that's that's an ideal spot to be in if you're if you're trying to add depth and add competition and add players is that we have the resources to do it obviously a top ten pick is is a huge bonus that's why the league's built the way it is they want the parody and so the teams that are good pick later the teams that aren't as good pick high with the opportunity to improve your team quickly and so the cap room is another part you can really improve your team with with relative quickness if you if you find the right players it's not always about just going to get the most expensive ones or the ones that the media deems the best ones we need to make sure we got the right ones coming in our building and we'll spend where we need to spend but we have the flexibility to do it in Cincinnati you're in a situation that you did not have a quarterback when you went in and so in essence Zach Taylor and you and the rest of the staff had to take it down to the studs you don't have to do that with the tight no does that change how you draft and sign for now based on the fact that you knew in Cincinnati you had to take a long term approach you know I don't ever think you get a long term approach I think that's a a long term approach is 3 years now at best I think you always operate with we're trying to put the best team on the field each year and whatever that looks like so if we need for agency we need to draft however we have to do it we're trying to put the most competitive best team on the field every year and there's long range there's drafting the long range they're signing for long range and there's then they're signing those guys that come in and help you for a year or two to keep moving forward and so I think that's the best way to describe it is you're trying to put the most competitive team on the field every year while you still have a little bit of a long range view in mind but knowing that you have to supplement that somewhere with a short term as well so that's probably the best way to put it out there well put as you're going through this time of year what has surprised you the most about the responsibilities that you've had to have as a head coach honestly this may sound weird not much I just I've been in this rhythm for a long time and I know a little bit about what's happening I think the amount of little things that come up that aren't necessarily big deals but they're just things that come across my desk is new that part's new not to be not unexpected but new and then the scheduling part is really what I spend a lot more time than I thought I might but it is you're thinking about schedules and when you're going to do what and how the install for the offense and defense is going to look and what's the offseason program scheduled during the day going to look like you only have so many hours and you get more for phase two and phase three how do you want to move those around when's our veteran minicamp how's that going to look so there's just a lot of scheduling that falls on my plate that's what I'm responsible for that day-to-day schedule that monthly schedule is all set for the offseason so I've spent more time on that maybe than I thought I would but I think about it a lot we all know well that you are the son of a coach and yet your dad did not give you the chances you came up and did it on your own and yet the fact that you're not overwhelmed by being a head coach might be as big a value with your experiences being the son of a coach as anything you know Callahan provided you with I've seen it done I've had the conversations with my dad I feel prepared there's been nothing that's come up at this point in my short time that's surprised me there's been a lot of things I felt really good about and feel very confident in what I want to do and how I want it to look I'm sure things will come up here sooner than later but for the most part I feel very confident in how I was prepared to get here I'm a big part of that and then obviously my time was at Taylor where I was involved in a lot of the decision making process on a day to day basis so I've seen a lot more than maybe your average first time head coach and that's I think been a benefit we know your dad's a great a great coach and we don't want to take that away but has it just been kind of nice to have him around oh it's been fantastic I was talking to him the other day just you know I get to walk in I grab a cup of coffee I go walk in his office or whatever I mean sometimes it's about my kids sometimes it's about looking for a house sometimes it's about how we want to turn the run game and you know it's just nice to have that resource and I walk in there a couple of times a day and you know I may just hey what's going on what do you got going on I just run through the day and he may say hey have you thought about this and I know I haven't and I should think about that so it's just he's been a great resource as a football coach and then it's been really fun to be able to go kind of shoot the breeze of my dad in his office and talk about whatever's on my mind it's been fun spending time with you over this last month and we're looking forward to a lot more appreciate you taking time for us at the at the combine of course it's good to be here for head coach Brian Callahan and A.B. Wells I'm Mike Keith thank you for listening to the OTP