PHOENIX — New Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Omar Khan doesn’t seem shy about wheeling and dealing.
Khan has already shown a willingness to pull the trigger on trades, making one before and one during the 2022 season. He was also extremely active in the first three weeks of this spring’s free agency period.
The next been item on the NFL agenda is the 2023 NFL Draft, and Khan possesses the ability to be aggressive in multiple different ways with the extra second-round pick, that’s more like a first, he acquired in the Chase Claypool trade.
If the Steelers want to trade up from pick No. 17, that 32nd pick could get them well inside the top 10. If they want to trade down, they could end up with five picks in the top 100.
Both of those options are on the table for Khan, who said he would have to wait to see how the draft board falls to fairly evaluate those options. But in general, he likes the idea of having more, not fewer, picks this April.
“This is a really good draft,” Khan said. “I’m very fortunate, my first draft is really good. So I love the idea of having a lot of picks. But all options are on the table. Obviously, if there’s an opportunity to try and trade up and get a player that we think is going to be an impact player and can help us right away or be a good, long-time Steeler, we’re going to evaluate it. All options are on the table.”
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As with everything, it will depend on how the draft board falls. If a top-10 players falls to the Steelers at No. 17, Khan may run to put his pick in without considering any options. But it seems more likely that he’s going to be more calculated — and more attuned to the thoughts and desires of the rest of his league — than his predecessor.
“We’ve never worried about what the folks in front of us will do,” Colbert said in 2021. “We used to do the mock drafts and it was a complete waste of time. What we’ve done now is — and we’ve done this, what, for the last 12 years or so, we just mock ourselves.”
Khan said that he intends to be as informed as possible about what other teams are doing, in order to have good info about the value of his picks
“We will be working hard at identifying other teams’ needs and trying to figure out what they’re doing,” Khan said. “It’s to our advantage to do that. We’ll be paying attention.”
But as far as what he might actually do on draft, all he can say for sure is to stay tuned:
“You’ll have to ask me that April 27.”
