Kevin Colbert’s departure as general manager led to an intermingling of new and old faces last summer at Pittsburgh Steelers’ headquarters.
Residing on Omar Khan’s staff after he was named Colbert’s successor were familiar personnel in new roles, his included. It also featured newcomers to the front office in key scouting positions and an organizational first: an assistant general manager.
Before scouting preparations ramped up last summer, a meeting was called at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex to bring everyone together so they could get feedback from one constant throughout the transition: Coach Mike Tomlin.
“(We) just had him go through what he looks for in a player, what he wants in a player,” assistant GM Andy Weidl said Friday. “All the scouts were in there. I was in there. We just asked him to do that so we were all on the same page, so when you are scouting in the fall, you’ve got it.
“You’ve got the orders of what you’re looking for. Part of scouting is knowing what you are looking at and knowing what you are looking for.”
From that point forward, it was decided that the Steelers didn’t need to simply identify the right athletes for the NFL, but the right football players for the Steelers’ style of play. That meant finding big, physical, tough players from the hundreds of college prospects that would be evaluated each Saturday during the fall and the ensuing all-star games and workouts that followed.
The fruits of that labor resulted in the seven players who were selected in the NFL Draft last weekend, beginning with left tackle Broderick Jones and finishing with another offensive lineman in seventh-rounder Spencer Anderson.
The Steelers added two lengthy cornerbacks, led by second-rounder Joey Porter Jr. No drafted player was shorter than 6-foot-2. Four were at least 6-4, including 6-7 tight end Darnell Washington, and three weighed 300 pounds as the Steelers fortified both sides of the line.
After the Steelers season ended in January, Tomlin was present every step of the way in helping evaluate the incoming talent.
“He loves the process,” Weidl said. “He loves football. He loves scouting. He loves hearing about it. He loves being in it. It’s awesome. It’s awesome because we’re there. There is no guessing. We hear the conversations. We have the conversations. We watch the players. You take them through the process.”
Tomlin was part of a front office braintrust that included Khan overseeing his first draft, plus Steelers newcomers in Weidl, a Mt. Lebanon native hired from the Philadelphia Eagles. It also featured Mark Sadowski, formerly of the Chicago Bears, as director of player scouting, and Sheldon White, formerly of the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders, as director of pro scouting. Holdover front-office members Dan Colbert, Kevin’s son, and Dave Petett were promoted, with Colbert running the college scouting side.
Khan, Weidl and Sadowski worked together more than two decades earlier with the New Orleans Saints.
“We always talk about that we’re a team within a team,” Weidl said. “Chemistry is just as important in our department and what we do as it is in the locker room — working together and doing what’s best for the Pittsburgh Steelers.”
Although some faces in the front changed, Khan said he retained about “85%” of what Kevin Colbert implemented when he oversaw the player personnel department. Tomlin and Khan also stressed to the scouts that the prospects the Steelers wanted must have a passion for football that stands out above the others.
“It could be a deal breaker,” Khan said. “I’m not going to go into how we come up with our final evaluation on that, but it is really important. We ask certain questions. It’s all part of getting to know the player, understanding if he loves it. A lot goes into it, but it can be a deal breaker.”
Tomlin embraced the challenge of working with a revamped front office, comparing it to the previous offseason when the Steelers sought quarterback replacements after Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement.
“We’re going through a transition here in a significant role,” Tomlin said. “We’d be remiss if we didn’t have urgency about it and also just be open to the differences that can help us improve. I’ve been excited about working with some of the new guys, some of the guys that aren’t new but are in a new role.
“I’ve just been open to doing things differently. Guys like us that have been in roles or in this organization for an extended period of time, it’s a natural inclination to get resistant to new thoughts, ideas, approaches. That is something that you can fall into, and it’s something we’ve been consistently resisting because we might miss an opportunity for improvement or to get better.”
It will take at least two or three seasons before it is determined whether the 2023 draft was a successful one for the Steelers. The initial thought is the Steelers got potential impact players in Jones, Porter, defensive tackle Keeanu Benton and Washington plus a backup pass rusher in fourth-rounder Nick Herbig.
Nothing will be determined until the players take the field, which begins next weekend at rookie minicamp. For the front office, it will gather again next month to plot the course of the 2024 draft.
“It’s a nine-month process,” Weidl said. “It’s a wide (group) of players. As you go through it, you tend to narrow the scope on your targets. To go through it together for the first time, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work, and just to have those kind of conversations of what’s best for the Pittsburgh Steelers and try to identify Pittsburgh Steelers that are going to come and add to our culture was exciting.”
Joe Rutter is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Joe by email at jrutter@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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