Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon knew early on his playing career wasn’t going to last long, but he still had a desire to stick around the league in another way.
Carthon continued to go on workouts but with the intention of networking with general managers and others around the league to find a way into that side of the business, as he told the “Green Light with Chris Long” podcast recently.
“I went undrafted to the Colts,” Carthon began. “I say I stole three years in the league. Kind of quickly knew that I wasn’t cut out for it but I also knew there was something else I could do.
“That spring of ’07, I just went on workouts, just taking random workouts knowing I didn’t want to play but that was my opportunity to meet GMs and express my interest in getting into scouting.”
In the process of doing that, Carthon met Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead, who was a pro scout with the Atlanta Falcons from 1998-08 before being promoted to director of player personnel in 2009.
It was that meeting with Snead that eventually opened the door for Carthon.
“I went on a minicamp tryout with the Falcons and remember getting his business card,” Carthon explained. “He was like, ‘hey, man, sorry, I’m not going to sign you.’ And I was like, ‘All right, cool, but can I get your business card? Because I want to do what you do one day.’
“The top of ’08, I remember having my agent reach out to teams he had relationships with and one of those teams was the Falcons. And then Les remembered the interaction. And so he called me and was like, ‘hey, man, probably don’t have anything but just want to interview you. Just talk to you.’
“They brought me in; I was there for maybe four hours,” he added. “Like a week or two later he called and offered me a job as a pro scout.”
Ran Carthon is a genius @greenlight @Titans pic.twitter.com/naOcstabEF
— chris long (@JOEL9ONE) January 26, 2023
Carthon would spend four seasons as a pro scout with the Falcons before following Snead to Los Angeles, and then settling in San Francisco, his previous destination before Nashville.
