The new general manager of the Tennessee Titans played running back at Florida and for two NFL seasons with the Indianapolis Colts. Ran Carthon’s father, Maurice Carthon, played eight seasons as a fullback and worked 19 seasons as an assistant coach in the NFL, starting as a running-backs coach.

So running back is a spot on the football field close to Ran Carthon’s heart, and after leaving his job as the San Francisco 49ers’ director of player personnel, getting close to Tennessee running back Derrick Henry is one of Carthon’s first priorities.

“More than anything, I can’t wait to stand next to him to size him up to see how big he really is in person,” Carthon said.

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The Titans’ roster says Henry is 6-foot-3 and 247 pounds, but he’s bigger than that – at least to the Tennessee offense.

Henry has run for 7,101 yards and 68 touchdowns in his five seasons as the Titans’ starting running back. Both numbers lead the NFL since the start of the 2018 season, and the TD figure is 20 more than any other player has.

In addition to leading Tennessee is rushing in each of the past five seasons, Henry led the NFL in 2019 and 2020, was leading the league in 2021 when a broken foot caused him to miss the final nine games of the regular season and finished as the runner-up in 2022.

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“I’ve been watching Derrick since he was at Yulee High School – a Florida boy,” said Carthon, who was a prep star at Key West High School. “I remember coach (Bill) Parcells told me one time: ‘Running back is a production-based position.’ If you didn’t get yards in high school and college, you’re not getting them on this level. If you look at Derrick’s history, he got yards in high school, he got them in college and he’s got them at this level.”

While playing for the Yulee Hornets from 2009 through 2012, Henry set the national high school record for rushing yards in a career with 12,144, including 4,265 in his 13-game senior season.

At Alabama, Henry set SEC single-season records with 2,219 rushing yards and 28 rushing touchdowns in 2015, when he won the Heisman Trophy and helped the Crimson Tide captured the CFP national championship.

Over the previous four seasons, Tennessee posted a 51-24 regular-season record, won the AFC South twice, went to the playoffs three times and got as far as the AFC Championship Game once.

But in 2022, the Titans lost their final seven games to finish at 7-10 and out of the playoffs, although a victory in the regular-season finale still would have gotten Tennessee into the postseason. The Titans lost that game 20-16 to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Quarterback Ryan Tannehill missed five games this season, and Tennessee went 1-4 without him. Rookie Malik Willis, a former Auburn QB, started three times in Tannehill’s place, but Joshua Dobbs, picked up from the Detroit Lions’ practice squad on Dec. 21, started the final two.

Carthon said he thought an offense built around a running back still could be part of a championship team in the NFL.

“It’s cute to play Golden State Warriors football on October, September,” Carthon said, “but when those conditions change and you can’t throw the ball up and down the yard, you better be able to run it and you better be able to defend it. And I think if you look at the teams that are in the playoffs that are still playing at this stage, everybody’s able to run the ball, so I think you can win championships that way.”

Carthon got the job left open when Tennessee fired Jon Robinson on Dec. 6 in his seventh season as the Titans’ general manager.

The Titans currently have six selections in the 2023 NFL Draft, starting with the 11th choice.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.