Saunders: Don’t Pretend We Know Omar Khan’s Draft Tendencies Already
The Pittsburgh Steelers have completed their pre-draft process, with head coach Mike Tomlin, general manager Omar Khan and many of the team’s coaches and scouts attending the 2025 Senior Bowl, NFL Combine, and numerous pro days, in addition to hosting 34 prospects at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex for pre-draft visits.
That has, of course, let to plenty of speculation about what the Steelers’ interest level in certain prospects says about their draft status.
That process stems from that fact that under general manager Kevin Colbert, the Steelers were one of the most predictable teams in the draft, year after year. The Steelers went 15 seasons between 2009 and 2024 where their head coach and/or general manager were at the pro day of their first-round draft pick.
It’s clear that Khan is doing some things differently than his predecessor, and not just by picking Fautanu despite not having made the trek to Seattle to scout him in person.
The Steelers have changed a ton about their entire pre-draft process. The Steelers are putting more emphasis on the Senior Bowl, using those meetings as a first look into the scouting process. They have infrequently gone back to players they already met with at the Senior Bowl during the scouting combine, instead using that event to widen the horizon of their draft search.
Khan and Tomlin have been much more selective about where they travel for pro days, compared to what Colbert, a former scout, put on his plate. Instead, they’re bringing in higher-profile draft targets for pre-draft visits to UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, which they had previously reserved for small-school players not worth the trip on the pro day circuit and other odds and ends.
So what does all of that tell us about what Khan and Tomlin are thinking when it comes to the 2025 NFL Draft class? Relatively little. We only have a two-year sample size when it comes to the new method of doing business under Khan. It’s hard to separate what’s a hard-and-fast rule, like Colbert’s pro day trend, from a two-year coincidence.
Khan also seems much less interested in box checking than Colbert ever did. The Steelers top brass made the trip to Texas to see the Longhorns’ huge draft haul, including quarterback Quinn Ewers, wide receivers Isaiah Bond and Matthew Golden, defensive linemen Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton and cornerback Jahdae Barron. But instead of his usual front-and-center position during the drills, Tomlin was nowhere to be seen during the live stream of the Texas pro day.
The Steelers got in, took some players out to dinner the night before, did their business, and were off to the next stop. They didn’t even stay in Ann Arbor for the Michigan pro day, taking some players out the night before and then scrambling back to Pittsburgh to host Aaron Rodgers.
So does the lack of a pre-draft visit mean the Steelers are out on Michigan defensive tackle Kenneth Grant? Not necessarily. They met formally with Grant at the combine. They also could have caught up with him in Ann Arbor before the Michigan pro day.
If they saw what they needed to see and learned what they needed to learn, why bring him in for yet another visit to Pittsburgh?
Under each of Khan’s first two offseason as GM, the Steelers used their first-round pick on a player that did take a pre-draft visit. But two in a row is not a streak worth betting on.
Khan has shown plenty of other tendencies, as well. The Steelers have drafted heavily from the Senior Bowl under Khan. They’ve shown a strong preference for players with a high Relative Athletic Score. He’s drafted consecutive first-round players from successful major college programs.
Should we rule out players with low RAS scores or from colleges that haven’t won a national championship? Probably not just yet.
It’s easy to fall into the same pattern of finding a specific interest and then latching onto that as a go/no-go for the Steelers in the draft. But most NFL teams don’t operate that way, and there’s no guarantee Khan will, either.
