It’s very rare that an NFL coach spends nearly two decades with the same organization, but former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Keith Butler made it 19 years with the organization. More than almost anybody, he knows a thing or two about how the decision-making process works behind the scenes in Pittsburgh. In a recent interview with Talegate Sports, he discussed how assistant coaches can help influence the draft process and described some of how the power dynamics work in Pittsburgh specifically.
“Are you able to have some conversations with the GM about maybe what you’re looking for?” Butler was asked.
“Yes. I’m glad you brought that up,” he replied. “The scouts have determined who’s gonna be drafted high, who ain’t gonna be drafted high. What you have to do as a coach is you gotta go in and, as a coordinator, I had to look at like 50 guys. In order to study those guys, you have to watch three or four games from their last year to see what kind of players they are and see what they do best and see what they struggle with or try to determine that. And then you go in and you stack the board. You try to put people up there that you want that you think fits what we do.”
For scouts, the draft process never stops. By the time the 2024 draft happens, they already have the beginnings of a short list to start focusing on for the next season. And in many cases they already watched those players in the process of scouting people from the year prior. Coaches hop into the process once the season ends and use the scouts’ work as a starting point.
The coaches then stack their own boards individually after watching film so they can start to reach a consensus in the building. Butler didn’t explicitly state this, but I would imagine his opportunity to pound the table for a prospect came when he was presenting his personal big board to the rest of the group. But the decision ultimately goes to the higher ups. In most organizations, that would be the general manager. In Pittsburgh, it sounds like more of a collaboration between the GM and head coach Mike Tomlin.
“It stops with the GM, but the Steelers anyway, the head coach got a big say,” Butler said. “And the head coach usually if he knows his assistants, he usually has a good idea about what they think too.”
This is just another benefit of the continuity that Pittsburgh usually offers on the coaching staff. Tomlin, who has been around for 18 seasons, has trusted opinions in the room from some of his assistant coaches when it comes time to stack the ultimate big board for the draft. That is just one more way for assistant coaches to help influence which players are selected.
There have been plenty of examples over the years of assistant coaches influencing which players were drafted. DB coach Carnell Lake seemed to have a hand in Sean Davis being drafted, for example. And both 2025 seventh-round picks were part of special teams coordinator Danny Smith’s wish list. Their input on the draft process doesn’t fall on deaf ears.
Butler joined the organization as the linebackers coach under Bill Cowher when Kevin Colbert was the director of football operations and he is describing a dynamic where the head coach has a lot of sway in the draft room. I would imagine that sway has only increased since Colbert retired and they moved on to Omar Khan. Though it’s important to note that they hired assistant GM Andy Weidl specifically to help set the draft board. And I would be remiss to not mention Art Rooney II in that equation as the team owner and president.
If you’ve ever wondered how the sausage is made in Pittsburgh’s draft room, Keith Butler gave us a fascinating peek behind the curtain.
