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Steelers GM Kevin Colbert stepping down after draft


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1 minute ago, Dcash4 said:

Like what? 

Like actually having somewhat of a plan for when your longtime GM retires.    Its not like it was sudden.   They knew it was coming soon, yet were still scrambling to figure out what to do.

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5 hours ago, Dcash4 said:

Got it. Can we just end at you didn’t like the plan? Acting like we have a clue about what did or didn’t happen with the planning is laughable. 

Yes, because its not like its obvious they didnt have much of a plan.   Either that or the plan sucked.

I already admitted numerous times I hated their approach.   You called that "laughable" too...then labeled me a hater.

I already said Im fine with you feeling differently.

Youre the one who constantly feels the need to gatekeep and make excuses every time someone expresses a valid criticism of how this all shook out.

I dont mind that you are fine with how it all went down, but the truly "laughable" part is you acting like this whole process was flawless and beyond criticism.   And dont bother claiming you havent because you have came after almost every single critical post Ive made about this since January, and instead of actually quelling my criticisms with facts, you just label me as a hater or claim my stance is "laughable".

I respect your opinion on most things we discuss and even respect your opinion here.   What I wont respect is playing MY opinion off as laughable, especially when you haven’t provided anything to prove my criticisms wrong.

You can be fine with how everything went.   Im not....and regardless of what you or I think....this clearly wasnt a smooth process or something they were abundantly prepared for like the Ravens were when Ozzie retired....and thats a fact.    

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1 hour ago, 43M said:

I respect your opinion on most things we discuss and even respect your opinion here.   What I wont respect is playing MY opinion off as laughable, especially when you haven’t provided anything to prove my criticisms wrong.

I absolutely respect your opinions, but I’m not exactly sure what you want me to prove here? You’re now talking about the planning being flawed like your in the room. If you are, awesome — spill some info and tell Tomlin I said hi. If your not, can we not treat that opinion as fact? 

I won’t lie and I mean no disrespect with this comment, but I laughed pretty hard with your response to my use of the word “laughable”. I’m fairly certain I’ve never used the word here before. I 100% used it because it’s a word you use often to describe anything the Steelers do. It’s either laughable or incompetent. 99% of the time I push back on things is simply because of the language you use. You can feel however you want, and you’re for sure a bright enough poster where I’ll respect how you feel, but no part of this was incompetent not laughable. Incompetent is the Jets allowing a bad GM they were going to fire make the personnel moves and fire him 2 weeks after the draft. Incompetent is the Bears allowing a lame duck GM and coach to trade future picks for desperation to save jobs for a team they wouldn’t be working for. Incompetent is the Giants allowing Gettleman to hand out terrible contracts and leave them in a place that forces the new administration to cut their best player because they had no choice. None of this was that.  I agreed with some of the flaws you pointed out along the way, but when they didn’t trade all of 2023 to move up and ended up with the in-house guy, That pretty much all went away  

We started this journey by me mentioning that there is a knee jerk reaction to anything the Steelers do as being incompetent. Then here, after going through a process that ended up at the very least landing on its feet — well, there’s still an issue because they didn’t plan….something we have no idea about. I’m not expecting you to bow down to any decisions that happen, but as I said — you didn’t like the process…can’t we just leave it at that instead of continually insisting there is another flaw and one that has no bearing? 

I never once said the process was flawless nor did I ever call your opinions on it laughable. But first claiming incompetence constantly and now claiming we know about planning is a step too far. 

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2 hours ago, BradfordSteeler said:

Were they? What actually suggests this?

The fact that they didnt have a clear successor ready to take over, and were interviewing numerous largely random candidates deep into the FA and draft process, thus excluding any new outside candidate they possibly hired from having a say in building the team they were about to take over.

The fact that they didnt promote Khan or Hunt pretty much immediately is pretty telling about the lack of faith they had in them.  You can say "they were just doing their due diligence" if you want, but if they had much faith in either of those guys, they could have and IMO would have announced they would be taking over for Colbert AFTER the draft.   And if it had gone down like that, I might have faith in the hiring of Khan (or Hunt).

Instead, what I believe happened was, since they weren't high on the internal candidates, they scrambled to find a bunch of external guys to interview, and just dragged their feet and let Colbert finish this last offseason on his own (which, on its own, was a terrible decision IMO).    Then, they promoted Khan AFTER the draft to either save face or because they were not especially high on any outside candidates.    IMO, the guy they brought in to be the Asst GM will either be Colbert's eventual successor, or him and Khan will be co GM since they clearly dont have a ton of faith in Khan. 

Is some of this based on assumption?  Yes, but its assumptions based on logical reasoning.

Even if you want to dump the assumptions, and just focus on the fact that they waited until after the offseason to name a successor, I still think it was an awful approach.    The Khan hiring makes it seem more competent since he is already an insider, but Im really not sure of Khans (a cap guy) ability to actually assess talent and build a quality team....which again is why I think they brought in the Asst GM....but then that goes right back to my issue of bringing in an outsider who had no saying in building the team he is about to take over.

Feel however you want about it.   

Unless you have any actual objective facts or evidence that shed some new light on the situation, you are not going to sway me. 

Im not trying to convince anyone to agree with me, but in the end, I hate how this was handled.

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1 hour ago, 43M said:

The fact that they didnt have a clear successor ready to take over, and were interviewing numerous largely random candidates deep into the FA and draft process, thus excluding any new outside candidate they possibly hired from having a say in building the team they were about to take over.

The fact that they didnt promote Khan or Hunt pretty much immediately is pretty telling about the lack of faith they had in them.  You can say "they were just doing their due diligence" if you want, but if they had much faith in either of those guys, they could have and IMO would have announced they would be taking over for Colbert AFTER the draft.   And if it had gone down like that, I might have faith in the hiring of Khan (or Hunt).

Instead, what I believe happened was, since they weren't high on the internal candidates, they scrambled to find a bunch of external guys to interview, and just dragged their feet and let Colbert finish this last offseason on his own (which, on its own, was a terrible decision IMO).    Then, they promoted Khan AFTER the draft to either save face or because they were not especially high on any outside candidates.    IMO, the guy they brought in to be the Asst GM will either be Colbert's eventual successor, or him and Khan will be co GM since they clearly dont have a ton of faith in Khan. 

Is some of this based on assumption?  Yes, but its assumptions based on logical reasoning.

Even if you want to dump the assumptions, and just focus on the fact that they waited until after the offseason to name a successor, I still think it was an awful approach.    The Khan hiring makes it seem more competent since he is already an insider, but Im really not sure of Khans (a cap guy) ability to actually assess talent and build a quality team....which again is why I think they brought in the Asst GM....but then that goes right back to my issue of bringing in an outsider who had no saying in building the team he is about to take over.

Feel however you want about it.   

Unless you have any actual objective facts or evidence that shed some new light on the situation, you are not going to sway me. 

Im not trying to convince anyone to agree with me, but in the end, I hate how this was handled.

Thank you for the response, I'm not sure the hostility is necessary, I just wanted to know what your opinion was based on. I'm not here to change your mind, I really don't mind what people think but I am interested in why they think it.

Fundamentally I don't think there was anything wrong with the approach they took, and I think for the most part people's views on it will come down to if they feel positively or negatively about the team in general. You seem to be very much a glass half empty guy, maybe even three quarters empty, at least when it comes to the Steelers so it is of no surprise that you don't like it. However, surely you have to accept that your opinion is based almost entirely on assumption and subjectivity? That's fine, but at least from my point of view I wouldn't make the carte blanche type of statements you have based on assumption and subjectivity.

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1 hour ago, 43M said:

The fact that they didnt have a clear successor ready to take over, and were interviewing numerous largely random candidates deep into the FA and draft process, thus excluding any new outside candidate they possibly hired from having a say in building the team they were about to take over.

The fact that they didnt promote Khan or Hunt pretty much immediately is pretty telling about the lack of faith they had in them.  You can say "they were just doing their due diligence" if you want, but if they had much faith in either of those guys, they could have and IMO would have announced they would be taking over for Colbert AFTER the draft.   And if it had gone down like that, I might have faith in the hiring of Khan (or Hunt).

Instead, what I believe happened was, since they weren't high on the internal candidates, they scrambled to find a bunch of external guys to interview, and just dragged their feet and let Colbert finish this last offseason on his own (which, on its own, was a terrible decision IMO).    Then, they promoted Khan AFTER the draft to either save face or because they were not especially high on any outside candidates.    IMO, the guy they brought in to be the Asst GM will either be Colbert's eventual successor, or him and Khan will be co GM since they clearly dont have a ton of faith in Khan. 

Is some of this based on assumption?  Yes, but its assumptions based on logical reasoning.

Even if you want to dump the assumptions, and just focus on the fact that they waited until after the offseason to name a successor, I still think it was an awful approach.    The Khan hiring makes it seem more competent since he is already an insider, but Im really not sure of Khans (a cap guy) ability to actually assess talent and build a quality team....which again is why I think they brought in the Asst GM....but then that goes right back to my issue of bringing in an outsider who had no saying in building the team he is about to take over.

Feel however you want about it.   

Unless you have any actual objective facts or evidence that shed some new light on the situation, you are not going to sway me. 

Im not trying to convince anyone to agree with me, but in the end, I hate how this was handled.

I’ll add even from the inside if they were confident and they were more concerned that Hunt would leave when Khan was promoted, and Khan was always their guy; they should have encouraged Hunt to go get the new position when the time was right for it.  

From an optics standpoint this was just a mess though so that’s why I’m on board with what you are saying.  Looking back, I’m starting to think that Khan was always the pick and they were really interviewing for assistant GM.  I wonder if the GM job was Khan/Hunt as the leaders, they knew early Khan was the pick, and all the interviews were for the assistant GM job to be more in charge of talent. 

I think operating the other way (GM great with talent, needing a money guy off of that) it would have been much more difficult to land good talent.  I think landing good talent that can find talent it’s a ton easier.  

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1 hour ago, BradfordSteeler said:

Thank you for the response, I'm not sure the hostility is necessary, I just wanted to know what your opinion was based on. I'm not here to change your mind, I really don't mind what people think but I am interested in why they think it.

Fundamentally I don't think there was anything wrong with the approach they took, and I think for the most part people's views on it will come down to if they feel positively or negatively about the team in general. You seem to be very much a glass half empty guy, maybe even three quarters empty, at least when it comes to the Steelers so it is of no surprise that you don't like it. However, surely you have to accept that your opinion is based almost entirely on assumption and subjectivity? That's fine, but at least from my point of view I wouldn't make the carte blanche type of statements you have based on assumption and subjectivity.

Not sure what hostility youre referring to.  I was merely being blunt because Ive explained my issues numerous times before.

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54 minutes ago, warfelg said:

Looking back, I’m starting to think that Khan was always the pick and they were really interviewing for assistant GM.

This is what I am leaning towards. Look at the history of the Steelers hires for GM: Rooney, Haley, Donahoe, Colbert...all three came from the Player Personnel side with backgrounds in scouting. 

Look at the list of positions of the 16 candidates interviewed:

College scouting director, Director of player personnel, VP of player personnel, Asst GM (who was a player personnel guy), Director of Player Personnel, Pro Scouting Director (Hunt), VP of Football and Business Admin (Khan), Asst GM (was a director of player personnel), former GM (and player personnel), former Director of Player Personnel, former GM (also player personnel), Director of player personnel, VP of Player personnel, Vp of player personnel, co-director of player personnel, director of player personnel. 

I hope none of you read that, but I sure did type it for you (not sure why). 

Round up:

- 1 College Scouting
- 13 Pro Personnel
- 1 Business Admin (internal)
- 1 Pro Scouting (internal)

Feels pretty deliberate that they hired Khan. Also seems like they knew they didn't want Hunt (which will be interesting to see if he gets picked up by another team this year or not.

Also, just an interesting set up here: But no one can approach Khan without compensation and no one can interview Weidl without permission. Feels odd to say, but no one's reaching out to interview the white guy just to check a box, so much more likely he sticks around. So if you wanna say this is an odd Co-GM....it's set up the right way. 

I don't mind the time they took to hire the position. They think highly of Colbert and they were hiring for 20 years, not 2022. The longevity of getting the right person vs the immediate return of the first person doesn't strike me as odd...though I did have doubts about the final draft headed in. 

Between the history of the position, the candidates they interviewed, the years of which they hire for, and knowing Colbert was year-to-year now for some time... I would lean towards this having been planned more so than something thrown together on a whim. 

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1 hour ago, Dcash4 said:

This is what I am leaning towards. Look at the history of the Steelers hires for GM: Rooney, Haley, Donahoe, Colbert...all three came from the Player Personnel side with backgrounds in scouting. 

Look at the list of positions of the 16 candidates interviewed:

College scouting director, Director of player personnel, VP of player personnel, Asst GM (who was a player personnel guy), Director of Player Personnel, Pro Scouting Director (Hunt), VP of Football and Business Admin (Khan), Asst GM (was a director of player personnel), former GM (and player personnel), former Director of Player Personnel, former GM (also player personnel), Director of player personnel, VP of Player personnel, Vp of player personnel, co-director of player personnel, director of player personnel. 

I hope none of you read that, but I sure did type it for you (not sure why). 

Round up:

- 1 College Scouting
- 13 Pro Personnel
- 1 Business Admin (internal)
- 1 Pro Scouting (internal)

Feels pretty deliberate that they hired Khan. Also seems like they knew they didn't want Hunt (which will be interesting to see if he gets picked up by another team this year or not.

Also, just an interesting set up here: But no one can approach Khan without compensation and no one can interview Weidl without permission. Feels odd to say, but no one's reaching out to interview the white guy just to check a box, so much more likely he sticks around. So if you wanna say this is an odd Co-GM....it's set up the right way. 

I don't mind the time they took to hire the position. They think highly of Colbert and they were hiring for 20 years, not 2022. The longevity of getting the right person vs the immediate return of the first person doesn't strike me as odd...though I did have doubts about the final draft headed in. 

Between the history of the position, the candidates they interviewed, the years of which they hire for, and knowing Colbert was year-to-year now for some time... I would lean towards this having been planned more so than something thrown together on a whim. 

I don’t mind but the optics wasn’t ever good to say they were looking for a GM but really weren’t. Just come out and say you are looking for this. So if Hunt wants to duck, he can take a high level job when other FOs we’re getting built out. Now, unless the eagles or bills bring him in this year, if Weidl wants his own guys Hunt is screwed. 

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13 minutes ago, DR43 said:

I presume most people are not in favor of the new hire.

I have more issue with the process than the hire.

No, Im not a big fan of the hire either....primarily because I dont know what his qualifications are for actually assessing football talent.    But I believe thats why Heidl was brought in.   I honestly wouldnt be shocked if he is the new Colbert and Khan is just there to get him acclimated with the Steelers front office.    

As I said before....if they were high on Khan, he wouldve been announced much sooner and they wouldnt likely bring in an outside guy to be the assistant GM.   

Serious question....did Colbert ever have a an assistant GM?  Im honestly not sure.

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42 minutes ago, 43M said:

I have more issue with the process than the hire.

No, Im not a big fan of the hire either....primarily because I dont know what his qualifications are for actually assessing football talent.    But I believe thats why Heidl was brought in.   I honestly wouldnt be shocked if he is the new Colbert and Khan is just there to get him acclimated with the Steelers front office.    

As I said before....if they were high on Khan, he wouldve been announced much sooner and they wouldnt likely bring in an outside guy to be the assistant GM.   

Serious question....did Colbert ever have a an assistant GM?  Im honestly not sure.

Khan and Hunt were kinda that without the title. 

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