If you’re wondering when the Pittsburgh Steelers will hire a general manager, give it about another three months. Despite interviewing a long list of candidates, Kevin Colbert told reporters Monday the team doesn’t plan to make an official hire until after this April’s draft.
From ESPN’s Brooke Pryor.
So far, the team has interviewed ten candidates. Two of them have been internal, Omar Khan and Brandon Hunt, while the other eight have been out-of-house. Those names are: Louis Riddick, Morocco Brown, Ed Dodds, Ryan Cowden, John Wojciechowski, JoJo Wooden, John Spytek, and Dan Morgan.
While the team is conducted a flurry of interviews months before an official hire, Colbert said NFL rules allow teams to block interview requests post March 1st. Requests prior to then for GM spots can’t be blocked. Per the PPG’s Gerry Dulac, Colbert also confirmed he is part of the interview process.
In his article for the Post-Gazette, Dulac notes Colbert said Mike Tomlin has yet to sit in on GM interviews yet and won’t until a second round of interviews take place after the draft. Meaning, only one round has been conducted so far, and the list is likely to be whittled down after the draft to just a couple of names. We should know who those finalists are before a decision is announced.
He also had an interesting note about the direction the organization needs to go in.
“We always have to be open to new ways to do things and more current ways,” he said via Dulac’s post. “I encourage my younger scouts to push me in that regard. The better solution might be outside the organization. We have to be open to try to stay ahead of the game.”
Does that mean an outside hire is coming? Maybe not. But it’s a note to file away.
Colbert also told the media he informed the Steelers in May of 2021 that the 2022 draft would be his final one as Steelers’ GM.
Dulac also notes that Colbert is likely to stay on-staff in some sort of reduced role after stepping down from being the Steelers’ general manager. Colbert has been the general manager (or de facto GM, not officially getting the title until 2011) since being hired by the team in 2000.
Odds are still high the team stays internal by promoting Khan, Hunt, or some combination of the two. Going through an entire offseason, especially one as critical as this one for the Steelers, followed by an outside hire is a tough spot to be in for an organization. But the Steelers are clearly taking advantage of the time and lack of competition they have with every other GM job accounted for. We’ll just have to wait and see what the team announces following this year’s draft.
