May 27, 2022 4 min read

The Steelers made it official with Omar Khan as their new general manager this week, replacing Kevin Colbert.

They’ll also hire Mt. Lebanon High School graduate Andy Weidl as their assistant general manager.

What this means is that Art Rooney II chose to largely go with the status quo with the position.

Khan will continue to handle the same duties he did when Colbert was general manager. That means he’ll handle contract negotiations and other financial business with the team.

Weidl will run the scouting department, which was Colbert’s job, even though he had the general manager title.

The Steelers never had a general manager prior to 2010. Colbert’s title before that was director of football operations, the same title held by Tom Donahoe and Dick Haley before him.

And Colbert’s job description really didn’t change when he was given the general manager title. The only reason he was given that title was because when he would go to college games for scouting purposes, as director of football operations, he was seated in the stands with other team scouts.

The general managers of NFL teams get to sit in the press box.

So, with the elevation of Khan and addition of Weidl, nothing will change in terms of how the Steelers run things on a day-to-day basis.

n Hope springs eternal when it comes to OTA sessions and NFL teams.

Every team in the league is feeling good about their roster, their draft picks, their offseason additions.

That’s the way things work.

No team is dealing with any real injuries at this point. And even the injured players are working their way back onto the field.

But let’s remember this is, as Mike Tomlin likes to say, it’s football in shorts.

Nobody is getting tackled. Nobody is really being blocked. The players aren’t in pads.

Anyone who says this or that guy looks really good is really just faking it. They aren’t playing football right now.

Of course, everyone with an NFL team looks good when they’re not getting tackled or at risk to be hit. These are some of the best athletes in the world.

The more shocking thing would be if players were at an NFL team’s OTA sessions and didn’t look good. Of course, that player likely wouldn’t be around very long.

n Cam Heyward said this week that he’s spoken to defensive lineman Stephon Tuitt and he will be at the Steelers’ minicamp in a couple of weeks and will play in 2022. Chase Claypool said the same thing about fellow wide receiver Diontae Johnson.

It’s amazing when people make a mountain out of a molehill regarding whether or not a player attends an optional offseason workout or not.

For example, there are other players who weren’t at the Steelers’ OTA sessions this past week. You didn’t hear anything about them because they didn’t have any circumstances – or perceived circumstances – surrounding them.

For Tuitt, it’s whether he’ll play in 2022 after missing last season with a knee injury and because of the death of his brother. For Johnson, it’s the possibility he is skipping these sessions because he wants a contract extension.

In both cases, nobody has spoken to either player to know what’s really going on.

But the reality is that these workouts are optional.

Troy Polamalu rarely joined the Steelers for OTA sessions. The one year he did, in 2012, it was noteworthy.

n If there’s one spot I still expect the Steelers to make an addition of a veteran player, it would be at running back.

Expecting Najee Harris to log nearly 400 touches again without getting nicked up is probably too much to ask.

Availability is a positive trait in running backs. And it’s another reason why the Steelers selected Harris where they did last year despite the analytics crowd saying that first-round running backs are wasted picks.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a more viable backup option than Benny Snell or Anthony McFarland.

n The Penguins’ re-signing of Bryan Rust last weekend at a bargain deal is a great move for the organization, but the people who also want them to now re-sign Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang are out of their minds.

Why bring back largely the same team that has been bounced in the first round of the playoffs four years in a row?