It's still too soon to judge Tennessee Titans GM Ran Carthon's first NFL draft for quality. But the moves the team made in 2023 can shed some light on how the Titans may behave in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Carthon and the front office staff have eight picks in this month's draft, beginning with No. 7 overall in the first round. With his seven picks last year — his first in charge of the Titans' personnel department — the general manager selected seven offensive players and made one trade, changing the direction of the franchise by moving up in the second round to acquire quarterback Will Levis.

In retrospect, his first draft was plenty interesting. As the Titans gear up for the final two-week push before the April 25-27 draft in Detroit, let's look back at the 2023 class and see what lessons can be gleaned from the way the team handled it.

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The Titans aren't afraid to make NFL draft trades

For a GM with a short tenure, Carthon has been at the center of some of the league's most prominent trade rumors. This time last year, the scuttlebutt was all about the Titans trying to trade up into the top five to pick a quarterback, while also balancing rumors that veterans Derrick Henry and Ryan Tannehill were on the block. The Henry rumors persisted up to the trade deadline, after the Titans had already dealt captain Kevin Byard. Just this spring, Carthon packaged future picks to add star cornerback L'Jarius Sneed. And none of this is mentioning the actual draft-day trade to get Levis.

Carthon uses the word "nosy" to describe his behavior, and the behavior of his fellow GMs, this time of year. Sometimes nosiness leads to actual trades. Other times, it's all talk. But Carthon has shown he's not afraid to stick his nose in the middle of the league's business, and that means Titans fans should never feel certain the team will be picking in the expected position.

Need isn't everything

If receiver wasn't the Titans' biggest need heading into last year's draft, it was no lower than second. Yet they waited until the seventh round to address the hole. Twenty-nine receivers came off the board before they snagged Colton Dowell, who caught one pass for 3 yards as a rookie as the Titans finished 29th in passing.

Could the team have benefited from adding a receiver sooner? Of course. Twelve of the 29 receivers picked before Dowell put up more yards than Chris Moore, the Titans' No. 2 receiver, including all four of the first-round picks and four players who would have been available to the Titans at or after pick No. 81, the slot they selected running back Tyjae Spears.

But the important factor here isn't whether the Titans should have picked a receiver sooner. It's that they didn't. Carthon made picks more based on their value with respect to the draft board than their value compared to need.

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Titans will make anticipatory moves

Levis and Spears were picked as future replacements for Tannehill and Henry. They weren't necessarily players who were going to help the Titans the most in 2023, but they made sure the Titans didn't have to fill those holes in 2024.

Henry and Tannehill are gone, but the Titans are in a similar position heading into 2025, when receiver DeAndre Hopkins hits free agency again. Based on how Carthon viewed pending free agents a year ago, he could view finding Hopkins' eventual successor as a bigger need than it may be portrayed.

Finding a 'blue player' in NFL draft first round

Carthon called Northwestern's Peter Skoronski, the player he picked at No. 11 last year, a "blue player" — Carthon's term for a pro-ready player who can project as a future centerpiece. The inference to be made was that Carthon wanted a safe, projectable, shouldn't-miss talent with his first pick rather than a boom-or-bust, high-risk and high-reward upside guy.

Heading into his second draft, the pressure on Carthon shifts from making his first decisions to making ones that match what he is trying to build. It'll be interesting to see if that shift comes with a little more willingness to take bigger risks earlier, or if the philosophy will continue to revolve around playing things safe at the top of the draft to ensure baseline quality.

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Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How 2023 NFL draft gives hints to Tennessee Titans' 2024 intentions