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Join Date: Jul 7, 2010
Location: Dive Bar
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KABOLY: In case you haven’t noticed, these aren’t your same old Steelers anymore
Mark Kaboly / Steelers Correspondent
For The @PatMcAfeeShow
PITTSBURGH — Your ‘Same old Steelers’ -- that’s what we all say about the Pittsburgh Steelers, right?
When the organization employs three head coaches over seven decades and the owner on record of being content with being in contention every year with the potential of catching lightning in a bottle one year rather than tearing it down and starting over, you tend to get slapped with a label.
“I'm not sure why you waste a year of your life not trying to contend,” Steelers owner/president Art Rooney II said last month. “Obviously, your roster is what it is every year. It changes every year, so you deal with what you have every year and try to put yourself in a position to compete every year. Sometimes you have the horses, sometimes you don't. But I think you try every year.”
Or, the process can be accelerated – or at least modified – without much notice, and that’s where the Pittsburgh Steelers are heading into the first leg of the 2026 season, which is next week’s NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
The ‘Same Old Steelers’ designation is a fair assessment of an organization that has been slow to make changes, but it also couldn’t be further from the truth, as it has been trending that way for more than four years.
The Steelers have undergone an organizational transformation over the past 45 months, and they have done it without much fanfare, that is, until Mike Tomlin unexpectedly stepped down after the season, which obviously accelerated a process that was nearing its lifespan anyway.
Since Omar Khan was hired as general manager in May of 2022, all the way through last week when the Steelers put the final touches on new coach Mike McCarthy’s staff, things have turned over at a rapid pace.
Playoff results have clouded the reformation of an organization that hasn’t been competitive in the playoffs for nearly a decade, but the Steelers from 2023 are barely recognizable from today.
Considering the administration, the head coach, the coaching staff, the football operations, and the players, there are a total of 14 individuals left with the same role that they had four years ago.
• Administration: Rooney II (President); Art Rooney Jr. (Vice President).
• Coaching Staff: Darrel Young (Director of Player Development)
• Football Operations: Chidi Iwuoma (College Scout), Mark Bruener (College Scout), Aidan Hennessey-Niland (Team Operations Coordinator).
• Players (currently under contract): Pat Freiermuth, Jaylen Warren, Mason Rudolph, Cam Heyward, T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, Chris Boswell, Christian Kuntz.
Even Rooney’s expected successor, son Danny Rooney, has been inserted into what is a more visible role, getting promoted from Director of Business Development & Strategy to VP of Business Development & Strategy eight months ago.
While this might be the norm for some organizations, it is definitely a change from how the Steelers used to do things.
You’d have to believe that the hiring of Khan and his new age strategy has contributed significantly to how the Steelers have embraced, and in some cases, demanded change.
It’s something that Khan alluded to during his introductory news conference in May of 2022.
“Anything that can help us improve or win football games, we're going to look into and utilize,” Khan said. “I have some cool ideas, I think I'm going to implement. I'm probably not going to share those publicly. I don't want anybody else knowing those. But we're going to use every tool or every opportunity we have to get better.”
There have been other changes as well that illustrate that the organization is not following the same path as always.
With Khan, the Steelers went from a conservative, build-through-the-draft, sometimes cap-hell, and rarely signing outside free-agent organization, and made a 180-degree turn.
Khan revamped the entire scouting department and brought in assistant general manager Andy Weidl, who is known more for being a talent evaluator who could work well alongside Khan and the head coach.
Khan promoted five within the football operations, kept three, and moved on from the others since he was hired.
A team that would only work through the draft made trades for DK Metcalf, Jonnu Smith, Jalen Ramsey, and Kyle Dugger last year.
The Steelers moved on from Diontae Jackson and first-round quarterback Kenny Pickett; added Allen Robinson and made the Rams pay for most of his salary, traded Chase Claypool for nearly a first-round pick, and traded up in the draft to get Broderick Jones that led to the nickname of the ‘Khan Artist.’
The Steelers not only traded for Metcalf but also gave him a $132 million extension. They paid T.J. Watt more than $40 million a year.
They changed the way they structured contracts, making a select few fully guaranteed for more than a year while relying heavily on one-year deals to outsiders who weren’t big-time contributors.
The biggest change came when Tomlin decided to step down after 19 seasons, but even their tested method of finding a head coach – a thirtysomething, first-time coach with a defensive background – came about differently as well.
McCarthy is 62, offensive-minded, and was a head coach for 18 seasons before joining the Steelers.
Tomlin’s departure was automatically going to result in a larger turnover of staff, and it did.
Only quarterback coach Tom Arth and inside linebacker coach Scott McCurley were retained.
Unlike when Tomlin took over, he brought back six coaches from Bill Cowher’s staff, including both coordinators—Dick LeBeau and Bruce Arians—from within.
Criticized for having one of the smallest coaching staffs in the NFL, that even changed this year.
Rooney signed off on the largest coaching staff in franchise history with 21, while adding positions like Chief of Staff, Game Management/Quarterbacks, and Defensive Passing Game Coordinator.
“The standard is try to compete to win a championship every year,” Rooney said.
Now, that’s the kicker to all of this.
The Steelers haven’t won a championship since the 2008 season. They haven’t won a playoff game in nine consecutive seasons.
Even though they won the AFC North championship last year and are one of five teams that have put together three consecutive 10-win seasons, they have nothing to show for it.
There is no guarantee that what they did or will do this offseason will change that, but there is one thing that you can’t say about the organization anymore … ‘Same Old Steelers.’
They are as far away as the ‘Same Old Steelers’ in terms of nearly everything they used to do or have done organizationally in the past -- coaches, players, staff, administration, and how they conduct their business.
But until this transformation results in playoff wins and a championship, it’s going to be viewed as the Same Old Steelers.
And maybe rightfully so.
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