The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2021 season is over, already eliminated from the postseason after suffering a 42-21 loss at the hands of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. They just barely made the postseason with a 9-7-1 record and a little help from their friends.
This is an offseason of major change, with the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger, the possible retirement of general manager Kevin Colbert, and the decisions about the futures of many important players to be made, such as Joe Haden, Stephon Tuitt, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and others—some already decided, some not.
Aside from exploring their options at the quarterback position, the top global priority, once again, figures to be addressing the offensive line, which they did not do quite adequately enough a year ago. Dan Moore Jr. looks like he may have a future as a full-time starter, but Kendrick Green was clearly not ready. Chukwuma Okorafor was re-signed, but Trai Turner was not. James Daniels and Mason Cole were added in free agency.
These are the sorts of topics among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked. There is rarely a concrete answer, but this is your venue for exploring the topics we present through all their uncertainty.
Question: Who will be the Steelers’ next general manager (and when will we know)?
The Steelers have never set forth a fixed timeline for making their decision on who their next general manager will be—and really, there’s no urgent need to. The draft is already in the rearview mirror. They can realistically take all the time they want. Jeremy Fowler reported that they will be wrapping up interviews this week, though.
But they have said all along that they would conduct a second round of interviews with the finalist candidates after the draft. They interviewed 16 in the first round months ago. They have interviewed several of them for a second time since the draft. It’s not clear how many more interviews there will be, if any, though it had been reported that Doug Whaley would have a second interview, which has yet to be announced by the team as having occurred.
Officially, we know that the following candidates have completed their second interviews with the team: Brandon Hunt; Omar Khan; Andy Weidl; John Spytek, and Ryan Cowden; and it’s been reported that Doug Whaley would also be brought in for a second interview, though the team has not yet announced it, so apparently it has yet to take place, assuming it will.
Again, we don’t know if there will be further candidates amongst the 10 others that they previously interviewed in the first round, so it’s possible that this is an incomplete list of finalists. But assuming that this is the group, whom do you believe will be the Steelers’ next general manager? And how much longer will it take for him to be named?
