Colbert: "...mistakes I made were 'hearts and smarts'"

I'm not sure how to interpret what he is saying. Is he saying he used too much analytics in the 2022 draft? Or he didn't evaluate the intangibles well enough?

[starts discussion @ mid-point]

Kevin Colbert on the NFL Draft, Steelers Legends & Penguins Playoff Momentum

 

I think the biggest mistakes he made were (1) reaching to fill positional needs (e.g. Edmunds and Bush) and (2) trying to give Ben "weapons" when we didn't have an OL (e.g. Najee, Freiermuth).

 

Also being fortunate that the small losing season they had coincided with what might be the best (at least among the best) QB drafts in the UFA/Cap era.

And even then, we still needed the Browns to be incredibly stupid by taking a mediocre TE instead of a franchise QB.

 

I suspect this happens more often than fans realize. It's the mid-round picks performing above their draft status that kept the team in the win column.

 

STD... come out, come out wherever you are.

@S.T.D

 

Colbet is GM who drafted many pro bowl guys ( 17 -18 ) , and a few players who will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame someday.

As such he has quite a legacy. I do think he is a hall of fame GM!

From 2000 to 2017 he deserved an A as the GM

From 2018-2022 he deserved a C-

Kevin by accounts is a gentleman. His son is a rising star as a scout within the organization.

 

Might be unfair given the standard they set in the early 2000s, but the drafting started going bad around 2008. I'll leave speculation as to why to others... Even some of the 'good' drafts from that post-2008 period rely on arguments around players who did their best work playing for other teams.

And while he drafted pro bowlers, at least a couple of them got their pro bowls elsewhere (most notably, Emmanuel Sanders and Javon Hargrave).

 

If players went elsewhere and became Pro Bowl and All-Pro level players, that is not on the GM. That is mostly on coaching.

Either the coaches didn't tweak the scheme enough to take advantage of what these players did best, or they didn't develop the player's talents well enough or use them well enough within their systems.

Sometimes it's not on the coach because the team simply couldn't afford to pay everyone.

Either way, the GM's job is to acquire talent. The coaching staff's job is to develop and maximize that talent and use it appropriately.

 

Colbert had some great seasons but fans sort of work in the mode of "tossing the baby with bathwater"
I suppose one could also say he might have been in the short timer mode too.

It is tough to maintain a winning roster, like the mode KC is in now. When you win, you are often picking near the bottom of the money rounds.
New England was a master of turning players for picks.. they get them, they play well enough and coming from a championship franchise their price tag was often inflated.
Pittsburg wasn't trading any players and often lost players in Free Agency.

I still hold Mike Tomlin in high regard but the power structure got warped.
I know they talk about "selection by committee" a lot but I think the years sort of watered down some of innovative thought processes.
Also, Mike Tomlin did have the problem of being too loyal to his guys and the system got stale and no quality coaches were bringing out the best of the incoming players.
Austin was a prime example and of course, Canada was probably the worst promotion ever.

I'm not real high on Omar, obviously.
I really think we need an infusion to that position. As to whether or not Weidl has that, I don't know for sure.
But I think we need a guy that makes decisions for example on a guy like Cam or TJ, where we probably could have gotten good returns on trading them and passing the cost to those teams while regenerating a younger roster.
I do think I would give Omar 1 more year. We've had a QB problem and a WR for far too long and we keep picking blue collar guys and not hitting of game changers nor making any moves to get any.

If you need to answer the Franchise QB spot, which is NOT easy to do, you need to position yourself.
That means making some tough decisions.
- You're not winning anything, so why waste TJ's value when you could get return to position yourself for the future? (this is all based on Ben's last days.)
- In trading TJ' type players, sometimes you lose games and that also gets higher draft picks. In no way do I ever support the illogical idea of "tanking" - it's merely a by-product of realignment and transition.

Hopefully, things go our way soon. I don't see 2026 as a big competitive season, it just doesn't have that feel. May a 9-win season but it's hard to really tell until you see those first couple preseason games.

 

I agree to a point. If the GM is bringing in talent that doesn't align with the way the coaching staff operates, that's still an organizational failure. I suppose we can all pick and choose who to blame there.

 

In your post that I quoted, you were putting that all on Colbert. You didn't put any blame anywhere else.

 

Pouncey, Brown, DeCastro, Heyward, Bell, Shazier and Watt were picked after 2008. They were alll studs on the Steelers. IE. Pro bowl guys.

IMO, the bad drafting started around 2018.

This link is useful. Enjoy!

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/pit/draft.htm

 

Highly underrated actor. He was the villian in Dreamscape with Dennis Quaid and was in Lynch movies and TV shows.

 

We also don't know how much the owner influenced player decisions. Trading away a face of the franchise player like Watt would probably bring some serious discussion with Rooney, i.e, the loyalty factor.

And then there is this quote from the QB:

"Coach Tomlin has so much control in that building, moreso than anybody knows, and he can deny it all he wants, but I've been there. I've seen it," Roethlisberger said. "People can say about draft picks, this, that, and the other, 'Well no, it's Mr. Rooney.' It is, but Coach Tomlin is way over Omar [Khan] and way over some of these other guys, and so he's going to have his say."

 

I think it does make sense that when you're paying your HC the 3rd highest salary in the league that he has a significant amount of power.

Particularly vs. Omar who was new to the job.

IMO, it did seem like the draft strategy did change after Colbert left (i.e. increased focus on tranches, no longer taking a WR in the 2nd every year). I think that suggests that either (1) Tomlin got more control when Colbert left and / or (2) Omar had a different philosophy than Colbert did (and that philosophy wasn't over-ridden by whatever control Tomlin had).

Every decision maker on the Steelers I've ever heard talk about the draft says it's a collaborative process between the HC, GM, and Owner. I think the most public friction here was between Cowher and Donahoe. Where it seems like Cowher forced TD out.

The next biggest public power struggle I can think of on the team was Ben vs. Haley. Where it looked like Ben threatened retirement, we fired Haley, then Ben wasn't talking about retiring anymore.

The only other public friction between FO types I can think of was Butler making comments about how he wasn't really allowed to make decisions on defense...and maybe that LeBeau wasn't allowed to make decisions at the end either.

 

All true.
As I said, our power structure is/was warped.

** I use the TJ/Cam trade as talking points. Just trying to example how some teams that need a rebuild will trade a player like that to facilitate a rebuild... I think you know that but just for the sake of an explanation. TJ is one of my all-time guys.

I think sometimes Ben is an echo chamber. I don't always agree with him.
I do think some of those free agent moves are his.
Tomlin also owns some blame for the QB problem knowing full well Ben was coming to the end of his career and just from practices and spot starts, Mason was not the answer. He also did not let Ben know that nobody cares how he feels about drafting the heir to his spot. Just play well and he doesn't have to worry.

 

Why do people think Omar is 'new to the Job?
Omar has worked int he Steelers org since 2001.
In 2022 he stepped into the GM role but he has been in player personnel since the beginning.
He also served under Kurarich (the Aints) and Mueller (awful) with the Saints before Micky Loomis kicked all of them out. (Omar was already gone)

I do agree with everything else... just that "new to the job" is a little bit of a trigger for me.

 

I think it's because he's new to the job of being a GM.

Colbert was in the job before Tomlin was. So while Tomlin had significant power due to high salary and high seniority, Colbert had higher seniority.

I think Kahn's previous experience makes him really good at a lot of things that are critical to being a GM (especially to someone like me who values analytics and asset allocation). He is very good at negotiating contracts, understanding the cap, understanding asset management, etc. because I think he was leading those things in his previous role.

But he is new to the GM job. So I'd imagine that if there was a difference of opinion in the "triumvirate" of Rooney-Tomlin-Kahn, Kahn's say is probably least powerful because Rooney is the employer and Tomlin has much higher stature and seniority.

 

With that logic, I guess some would think that.
Omar has been around some time working in the GM realm.
It is the first time he has been named GM.
But he has been deeply involved in the draft and player acquisitions for some time.
I guess we'll see where it goes.

 

All GMs have made bad picks, even the greatest of all time. Hell look at it this way. If every pick was successful, nobody would have to draft every year until their players got old.